Why internet is slow in Pakistan?

According to Geographic News, Pakistan reported on Monday that the country's Internet speed was slow due to a failure of the 25,000-kilometer Asia-Europe dual AE1 cable. A source from Telecom said that a 40 TB main cable near Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates was broken, causing the Internet to slow down throughout Pakistan. They said it may take several days to repair the affected cable. The source added that the authorities are working to divert Internet data traffic to other cables with lower capacity.

10 reasons why Pakistan's internet is bad

1.The government continues to levy taxes on the Internet

Internet access at an affordable price means a booming economy, empowered citizens, and more pictures of cats. Just try telling that to the government.

We've seen an increase in the number of taxes imposed on internet in Pakistan in the last 12 months. The dream of a cheap internet for the masses remains a dream. Whether it is a 14% advance witholding tax on a cell phone or a 19.5% data tax on a 3G/4G plan, the dream seems to be slipping further away.

2- Data restrictions for most packages

Do you know that if you exceed 300GB of data on your PTCL broadband connection below 8mbps, you are charged a flat fee of Rs. 5000? Definitely. The data limits offered by this provider are among the best in Pakistan. There are often data caps with Pakistani internet packages.

Let's not even talk about your data limits with a single 4K Netflix watch on 3G/4G/EVO.

3-When the submarine cable fails, the country will go offline

The submarine cable that provides Pakistan internet is experiencing trouble through which users are having connectivity issues yet again.

Regardless of what redundancy arrangements our ISPs have, they need to be improved. When it comes to judging an ISP, availability is one of the most important factors. In Pakistan, availability is poor.

It is hoped that new backhauls will be deployed and things will improve, but until then let's be realistic.

4-Bad customer support

In the customer service world, there's a saying that says your service must function in order to be good. Try it for yourself to see what we mean.

You may find it difficult to deal with any sort of customer support personnel. Chances are, if you get to speak to someone at all, you'll have to go through the same steps with the rep. Even if you have isolated the issue.

In fact, many Internet service providers have automated complaint registration, so you can be told to buzz off by a recorded voice.

5 – Lack of Choice Between ISPs

The only ISP that truly operates nationwide is PTCL. There are many other services, but their scope of operation is limited. As we mentioned before, most of them have download caps, which severely limits your operations on the Internet. Usually, it seems that the worst option has been chosen. You either have to pay a lot of money, or you are satisfied with the data cap, or you experience a lower speed.

6-Failed to enforce service quality indicators

Although the PTA defines KPIs to measure the quality of service of ISPs, these are not enforced. Therefore, if there is a large-scale power outage or anti-consumer behavior in the West and a lawsuit needs to be filed in the courts, there will be no consequences in Pakistan. Another important consequence is that consumers cannot make wise choices because it is almost impossible to find objective data.

7-Review

The elephant in the room: censorship. In the past, Youtube was blocked, and we saw discussion forums like Siasat.pk being closed. There were reports that the Pakistani government severely manipulated online debates in politics and religion, and participated in filtering countless websites. Plus the claim that Pakistan wants to build a surveillance system that can rival or exceed the system owned by the NSA, and that you already have an Orwellian Internet status.

8-Online gaming is a bad experience

Whether it is CS:GO or DOTA, Pakistani players have always been at a disadvantage in terms of ping. When every millisecond means the difference between winning and losing a game, our connection quality is poor, which is really disappointing. Considering the constant disconnection, this can lead to a frustrating gaming experience. I swear I am not bad, this is my internet! Although we heard that PTA is building a new Internet exchange for local peering, progress is still slow.

9-Copper media is used throughout Pakistan

How many times have you really wanted to enter an area served by Nayatel or BrainNet? 99.999% of Pakistanis usually leave aging PTCL copper media with its lifespan twice as long. If your speed is higher than 2Mbps, it will slow down or disconnect. FTTH is still an unfamiliar concept in the country. Only a few thousand of the 200 million people have deployed FTTH. For the rest, the Internet is as unreliable as Shahid Afridi on the court

10-No local content

How many hours can you browse Facebook and Gmail or several of your local news sites in a day (really ask, please don’t take it as a challenge)? The fact is that we lack local content so that we can count the local websites we visit every day with our fingertips. If you ask me frankly, this won't change anytime soon, because there is no return in producing local content. There used to be hundreds of bloggers producing local content, but now there are fewer than dozens of active bloggers left—the rest are gone, because banner ads are just a form of income for publishers, and worse What’s more, advertisers pay 100 cents per click on Adsense and don’t advertise directly at all, because they believe that Facebook provides the best return on investment.