Internet users across Pakistan experienced a sharp slowdown late Tuesday, with many struggling to access popular websites or facing repeated timeouts. Outage trackers also recorded a surge in complaints from customers of multiple service providers.
In an official statement, Nayatel confirmed that the disruption stemmed from a fault at one of its upstream providers. The company assured users that engineers were working on a fix and set an estimated restoration time of 1:15 a.m.
The slowdown comes at a time when Pakistan’s connectivity remains under pressure due to multiple undersea cable cuts earlier this month. The damage, reported in the Red Sea, forced traffic onto longer alternative routes, resulting in higher latency and slower speeds for Pakistan and neighboring countries.
Industry experts and monitoring groups have identified the affected systems as including SMW4 and IMEWE, two critical cables in the Asia-Europe corridor. Officials have already cautioned that repairs may take four to five weeks, raising the likelihood of recurring bottlenecks during peak hours even when local networks remain stable.
For those currently affected, live outage dashboards such as Downdetector can provide real-time status updates. Some users may find temporary relief by switching to alternative DNS settings, connecting through VPN servers closer to Europe, or using mobile data. However, specialists stress that these measures offer only limited improvement until full upstream capacity is restored.