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Internet service provider Stormfiber on Friday said that its internet services will be fully restored by Monday following disruptions over the past week across the country.
On October 20, internet users in Pakistan reported slow browsing speeds and service degradation on certain ISPs. The issue was once again linked to a submarine cable fault. However, there was no statement from the ISPs, the IT Ministry, or the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) at the time.
When approached for comment, IT Minister Shaza Fatima Khawaja said the issue stemmed from the global shutdown of Amazon cloud services. But many users claimed their ISPs had told them that cable damage was the actual cause.
In a statement issued on Friday, Stormfiber said:
“We expect to fully recover the lost capacity within 72 hours (by 11:59pm on Monday, 27 October 2025).”
The company added:
“We are continuing to add more capacity and reroute traffic to improve peak-time performance, with newly procured bandwidth coming online via UAE, Oman, and Hong Kong.”
It further stated:
“Incremental capacity will be added in staged activations prior to that, so many customers will experience noticeable improvement before then.”
— StormFiber (@StormFiberPK) October 24, 2025
Cause of the Outage
The company explained:
“Over the past few months, several regional submarine cables that carry much of the country’s traffic, including IMEWE and SEA-ME-WE4, have experienced outages.”
The PEACE cable system, which originates in China and connects to Pakistan, was also affected. Stormfiber said that at approximately 5:30 pm on October 20, the PEACE cable also suffered a cut in the Red Sea near Sudan.
According to the PTA, the submarine cables landing in Pakistan are operated by PTCL, Cybernet, and TransWorld Associates. PTCL runs three major undersea networks, AAE-1, SMW4, and IMEWE.
To mitigate the issue, the Cybernet Network Operations team proactively procured additional submarine capacity on alternate paths, including the PEACE cable.
