Pakistan second only to Myanmar in having most  internet shutdowns

A recent study conducted by the Top10VPN collecting and aggregating data on internet disruptions around the globe ranked Pakistan second by the long hours of shutdowns in year 2024 at 1,861 hours, marking it the second country with the most shutdowns, behind Myanmar. 

The shutdowns cost Pakistan an estimated 351 million dollars-second only to Myanmar. 
Astoundingly, the study reveals that Pakistan has 83 million users and only over 40 percent are accounted for paving way for Pakistan to be in top 15 most vulnerable countries.

The report also revealed that the duration of internet shutdowns surged 619 percent from 259 hours in 2023 — rising up five notches from seventh place globally in the previous years.

Accompanying costs also increased by an additional 114million dollars.

Notably, in a statement given by Pakistan Software House Association’s (P@SHA) Chairman Sajjad Syed claimed that each hour of internet outage costs one million dollars. 

Dawn’s Mutaher Khan quoted Cloudflare which claimed that the country has seen an annual decline in web traffic for most of 2024. Over this period, Pakistan’s peak growth was three percent, compared to global 17 percent.

It is worth mentioning that the average download speed in Pakistan in the past one year was around 22MBps, lagging well behind countries like the Philippines (97MBps), Bangladesh (37MBps) and Indonesia (31MBps).

Meanwhile, Syed Sajid Mehdi, the Parliamentary Secretary for the Cabinet Division, urged people to use the internet "less” and for “important matters only”. 

His unique suggestion was a solution to recurrent internet shutdowns and slow speed in Pakistan.

The parliamentary secretary also disapproved of the claim that internet slowdowns were causing financial losses to the IT sector of the country.

“We have not been told officially that the shutdown has caused financial losses. Nobody has filed any requests or complaints about financial losses.

“If anyone has suffered personal losses, then that is a different matter entirely,” he said.

However, addressing the longstanding concerns, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has confirmed the laying down of a major undersea cable that is expected to enhance connection speeds in the country.