13 July 2022

Pakistan’s telecom sector has warned the government of phone network and internet service outages, amid long and frequent power outages in the country.

The country is facing an escalation of its power crisis after it failed to agree on a deal for natural gas supply next month. Tenders for July were scrapped due to high price and low participation as the nation is already taking action to tackle widespread blackouts.

“Telecom operators in Pakistan have warned about shutting down mobile and internet services due to long hours power outages nationwide, as the interruption is causing issues and hindrance in their operations,” the National Information Technology Board (NIBT) posted on Twitter.

In a letter to Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), the telecom companies highlighted the challenges faced by the sector due to “unplanned and prolonged load-shedding nationwide” especially in rural areas.

“Despite having backup power available in the form of generators and batteries, cellular operators are finding it almost impossible to cope with the quantum of these power outages that are beyond our dimensioned backup capacity,” cellular mobile operators Jazz, Telenor, Ufone and PTCL said in the letter.

They also urged the Pakistan government to take urgent measures “to enable the telecom industry to keep providing essential telecom services to the masses”.

Pakistani prime minister Shehbaz Sharif warned the country that they might face increased load shedding in the coming month of July, according to local reports.