KARACHI: Without letting the people of Pakistan know a precise or a tentative day or date for getting the problem of major disruption in the Internet—over or bringing it back to normalcy, Experts of Pak Telecom claimed on Sunday that they had traced fault in the submarine cable by using the electrode testing system.
The fault in the only cable link to Pakistan Telecom has severely hit the proliferating business of call-centers and Internet services in what they call its infancy stage.
The abrupt breakdown in Pakistan’s contact with the rest of the world via a speedy Internet link—has given a big jerk and jolt to diverse arenas—virtually every aspect connected with ‘E’ such as Emails, E-ticketing, E-commerce, E-bookings, E-correspondence, E-records—with E-newspapers atop.
Unlike the hopes PTCL was giving on Saturday about the submarine cable repair its technical high ups Sunday were not in a position to give another specific hope for dying call-centers and internet businesses opening second week in darkness on today, Monday.
Tracing the Fault
Experts were of the view that fault in the submarine cable has been traced by using the electrode testing system. Yet Junaid I. Khan, chief executive officer of Pakistan Telecommunication Co. Ltd.[PTCL] said that the exact site of the fault in fiber link has not yet been located
At the same time, experts vowed that the fault was traced by sending signals from land to the submarine cable and the signals indicated a fault at 11 to 15 kilometer’s distance in the sea from Karachi.
The experts were working from Sunday morning to trace out the place of the fault under sea, a PTCL spokesman said.
A tele-conference of experts was held from 12:00 noon to 01:30 pm on Sunday, which was participated by the experts from various countries.
They exchanged information and came to a conclusion that the fault in submarine cable was developed between 11 to 12 kilometers distance from Karachi.
The fault that was developed in SEAMEWE-3 on June-27 in the sea, which caused a major Internet breakdown in Pakistan.
Undersea Cable
A repair ship on Sunday searched the Arabian Sea for a damage to an undersea cable which has disrupted Internet connections for Pakistan's 10 million online subscribers for almost a week.
The exact site of the fault in the Southeast Asia, Middle East and Western Europe-3 (SEAMEWE-3) fiber link has not yet been located, said Junaid I. Khan, chief executive officer of Pakistan Telecommunication Co. Ltd. [PTCL] which operates the cable.
About 50 percent of Internet links have been restored using a satellite backup system, he contended.
However, he did not give any other details and he would not speculate about how long it might take to repair Pakistan's sole undersea fiber link for the Internet.
PTCL officials have said some key Internet users, airlines, banks and the stock market are using the backup system.
Of Damage
Meanwhile, other Internet users complained that the disruption was damaging their businesses.
Farukh Aslam, who owns a call center in the southern city of Karachi and has 300 workers, said he lost two of his clients in the United States due to the service disruption.
"I am seriously considering laying off some of my employees," Aslam said. "It has played havoc with my business."
An official of the Internet service providers union said last week some 10 million subscribers have been hit by the crash.
Optimism
When workers across Pakistan started frantically clicking their mouses and checking their phones last week it seemed like just another one of the country's sporadic telecommunications breakdowns.
Nearly a week later, almost million Internet users were still offline and less than 20 percent of the normal capacity for international telephone calls was available.
Industry figures fear the problem could prevent Pakistan's fledgling call centres emulating the success of those in neighbouring India, which have reaped rich rewards from the global outsourcing phenomenon.
The disruption was caused by a fault in a power cable feeding Pakistan's sole fibre-optic international telecoms link deep below the Arabian Sea -- and it remained broken.
Potential Losses
"It has definitely caused millions of dollars potential losses and a lot of intangible damage you cannot quantify," Farrukh Aslam, President of the Call Centres Association of Pakistan, said.
After crucial liberalisation of the industry in recent years, Pakistan now has around 25 call centres which employ about 2,500 people and have a revenue of 75 million dollars.
They can offer foreign companies a cheap, English-speaking workforce while simultaneously benefiting their own employees. Average call centre wages are 8,000 dollars a year, far greater than the Pakistani average of 736 dollars.
The size of the business pales in comparison to the 14 billion dollars in revenue earned by Indian call centres, but operators here had hoped to attract around 10 percent of that within the next two or three years.
They had a rude wake up call on June 27 when the fault developed in the cable, which is owned by a consortium of 92 companies. Singtel of Singapore acts as its operating agent.
Repair Ship
A repair ship set sail last week from Dubai but experts say it could be another week or more before the problem is fixed.
The breakdown has highlighted a major infrastructure problem. While India has five fibre link cables and a sixth is on its way, Pakistan has only one.
"How pathetic it is on the part of planners and the leadership that despite making tall claims of revolutionising the sector they are banking on only one fibre optic link to connect with the outer world," said Aslam.
Pakistan's Minister for the IT and telecom sector, Awais Leghari, said he was concerned by the cable failure.
"Unfortunately this incident will send the wrong message to the international community, especially to those thinking of setting up call centres in Pakistan," Leghari was quoted as saying by local newspapers.
Not only call centres but also online banking and airlines are suffering.
"All our business including reservations, ticketing, check-ins and 500 agents all around the world are web-based and it was all affected badly," said director of an airline, one of Pakistan's growing number of private airliners.
"We had to switch to manual work and that was very difficult for us. Besides, we suffered severe damage to our market credibility."
Etisalat
State-run Pakistan Telecommunications Company Limited (PTCL), a 26 per cent stake in which was recently sold to Etisalat of the United Arab Emirates as part of Pakistan's privatisation plans, is trying to forestall future mishaps.
"We have already an agreement in hand with a consortium of 19 companies which is laying a submarine cable and by October this year it would be operative," said PTCL's senior vice president for special projects, Mashkoor Hussain.
He said the firm is also in talks with India about joining a cable near their border.
Lack of Foresight
"PTCL should have been blamed not for the cable fault but its lack of foresight, because despite our repeated warnings it could not arrange another cable or any other effective alternative," said V.A. Abdi, general secretary of Pakistan Internet Service Providers Association.
"These are all bureaucratic and political lies," said Aslam, who left his home city of Lahore to study in the United States in late 1983. "I am ruined and am now thinking of packing up and going back to the US."●
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