Internet users across Pakistan may experience slower speeds during peak hours until November 2, 2026, as the Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) carries out emergency maintenance on the AAE-1 international submarine cable.
What happened?
PTCL announced that repair work is under way on the Asia-Africa-Europe 1 (AAE-1) cable, specifically on the section between Italy and France. The company said repairs have already started, that users may notice minor service degradation mainly during busy hours, and appealed to customers for patience and cooperation while the work continues. Maintenance began on October 27, 2026, and is expected to run until November 2.
Key details
- The work covers the Italy-France section of the AAE-1 cable; users may notice slower browsing, delayed downloads and buffering while streaming, mainly during evening peak hours.
- Because the affected segment lies in Europe, services and websites hosted in Europe are the most likely to load more slowly.
- The AAE-1 stretches about 25,000 kilometres, linking Southeast Asia to Europe via Egypt, and lands in Karachi; PTCL began its Pakistani operations on the cable in 2017.
- PTCL has not yet said whether additional backup bandwidth will be provided during the repairs.
- A previous AAE-1 fault near Qatar in January 2025 slowed internet speeds across Pakistan for nearly two weeks before PTCL announced the issue had been resolved.
What it means for people in Pakistan
For people working, studying or running businesses online, the practical effect is likely to be slower connections in the evenings rather than a full outage. Large downloads, video calls and streaming may work better outside peak hours until the maintenance window ends on November 2, and the impact will vary by provider and by which international routes carry the traffic.
Source: https://www.techjuice.pk/pakistan-internet-users-may-face-slow-speeds-until-november-2/
