Internet services in Pakistan lag with each passing moment, leading to economic disparity in the country.
The IT sector called out to the government to provide robust 5G services to combat Internet issues in Pakistan.

In 2024, there was an outage in Internet services in Pakistan. Most of the Pakistanis are dependent on the Internet for their living. Due to the internet breakdown, people are facing trouble. Many people think that the disruption in Internet services is due to the firewall. However, the government and the IT sector cleared that the Internet cut off is not due to the firewall.

According to the global reports of Internet breakdown in Pakistan, it is the only country that faces Internet issues majorly. Pakistan had suffered a major loss due to internet instability. Almost $1.62 billion were lost. The report, however, predicted that the loss in the Pakistani economy is much greater than any conflicted country’s economy.

Most of the Pakistanis do freelancing. Their freelancing career was affected by the internet outage. Pakistan Freelancers Association highlighted that the freelancing situation in Pakistan was not good in the last months of 2024. The association further added that beyond these challenges, the Pakistan IT sector had made progress even in this crucial time. It could make more progress, but the Internet shutdown restricts it from doing so.

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According to an estimate, 82.9 million Pakistanis suffer from Internet disparities. It may also happen due to the political instability in the country, like protests, elections and all.

Pakistan Software Houses Association (P@SHA) also warned the government about the loss caused due to the internet breakdown. The chairman of P@SHA, Sajjad Mustafa Syyed, said that the internet breakdown led to the loss of one million dollars per hour. He, however, brought the attention of the higher authority to this alarming situation.

Mustafa Syyed appealed to the government to foster their steps in the rollout of 5G services in Pakistan, which has to be launched in March 2025. Syyed highlighted that the fiscal year 2024-25 in IT exports was tremendous as IT exports reached $3.2 billion. Moreover, he stated that the internet breakdown broke the government’s target of $15 billion in the IT industry for the present fiscal year.

Tufail Ahmad Khan, president Pakistan Freelancers Association, asked the government for more policies for stable Internet services. Khan said that the stability will reduce the pressure of employment on the government and hence increase Pakistan’s economy.

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) claimed that the internet outage was due to the disruption in the Asia-Africa-Europe-1 (AAE-1) submarine cable. PTA informed that the cable is one of the global cables that connects Pakistan to the rest of the world. However, the government is planning with Elon Musk’s Starlink to introduce satellite Internet services in Pakistan to avoid any future mishaps in freelancing or other working sectors.