Pakistan’s Digital Backbone at Risk: Two-Thirds of the Country Knocked Offline in Major Internet Outage

Lede

On August 19, 2025, Pakistan experienced one of its most severe internet blackouts in recent memory. Large swathes of the country — an estimated two-thirds of users — lost connectivity, disrupting businesses, banking services, healthcare, education and everyday life. The outage fell on the same calendar date as the nationwide collapse caused by floods on August 19, 2022, a coincidence that has reignited alarm about the fragility of Pakistan’s digital infrastructure.

Why the outage matters

Internet connectivity is no longer a luxury; it is essential infrastructure. Freelancers, small businesses, online banking, remote education and telemedicine all depend on reliable connections. Each hour of disruption erodes incomes, delays transactions, interrupts exports of digital services, and damages investor confidence. As a WISPAP spokesperson, Arshad, put it: “Freelancers, students, hospitals, banks — all depend on uninterrupted connectivity. Every hour offline costs Pakistan millions and damages our reputation internationally.”

The pattern: history repeating itself

That this outage occurred on the same date as the catastrophic 2022 breakdown — when floods damaged primary fibre routes — is not merely symbolic. It highlights recurring vulnerabilities: over-reliance on a small number of backbone routes, limited redundancy between regions, and a lack of resilient contingency planning at the national level. When critical fibers, submarine cable landing paths, or major exchange facilities are disrupted, the knock-on effects are widespread.

Immediate impacts observed

• Financial services: ATM networks, online banking and payment gateways slowed or stopped, causing cash flow problems for businesses and consumers.
• Freelance and export earnings: Many independent digital workers and small outsourcing firms lost billable hours and missed delivery deadlines.
• Health and education: Telehealth appointments and remote classrooms were disrupted, affecting patient care and student learning.
• Smaller ISPs and local networks: While some local pockets stayed online thanks to regional ISPs and microwave links, they could not fully compensate for backbone failures.

Why Pakistan’s internet remains vulnerable

1. Concentration of routes. Critical fiber and exchange points are concentrated geographically; damage to a few links can isolate large areas.
2. Limited route diversity. Many operators rely on the same submarine cables and terrestrial fibers with insufficient alternative routes.
3. Insufficient domestic peering and IXPs. Lack of robust regional internet exchange points pushes intra-country traffic onto international links unnecessarily.
4. Gaps in regulation and incentives. Market and policy structures have not sufficiently encouraged investment in redundancy and last-mile resilience.
5. Weather and physical risks. Natural disasters (floods, landslides) and accidental dig-ups remain major threats to physical infrastructure.

Practical steps Pakistan must take — short and long term

Short term (operational resilience)

• Activate contingency routing: ISPs and carriers should immediately apply alternate routing policies and re-route critical services through available satellite, microwave or alternate fiber paths.
• Prioritize critical services: Regulators should coordinate with providers to prioritize hospitals, emergency services, financial systems and government services during outages.
• Rapid incident reporting: A centralized operations dashboard that consolidates outage diagnostics and progress updates will reduce confusion and speed responses.

Medium to long term (structural fixes)

• Diversify backbone routes: Build alternative terrestrial fiber corridors and encourage private investment in new submarine cable landing stations and regional interconnects.
• Strengthen IXPs and local peering: Establish and expand regional internet exchanges so local traffic can remain domestic and avoid international chokepoints.
• Encourage multiple independent transit providers: Reduce single-vendor dependence by incentivizing competition and open access to key infrastructure.
• Regulatory frameworks for redundancy: Mandate minimum redundancy standards for critical national infrastructure and require contingency plans for major providers.
• Public-private resilience funds: Create funding vehicles or tax incentives to underwrite redundancy projects that have high public good value but low short-term commercial return.

What stakeholders must do now

• Government & regulator: Commission a fast technical audit of the outage, publish findings transparently, and adopt enforceable standards for resilience.
• Telecom operators & ISPs: Invest in route diversity, interconnection agreements and automated failovers; report progress publicly.
• Businesses & citizens: Prepare continuity plans — maintain alternative communications (SIMs from different operators, satellite options for critical work), and adopt local caching/CDN strategies to reduce reliance on distant servers.

A test for Pakistan’s digital ambitions

Pakistan has made strides toward building a digital economy — from expanding mobile penetration to supporting freelancers and startups. But these gains are fragile if the underlying networks can be taken offline repeatedly. Building resilience is not optional; it is a precondition for economic stability and global competitiveness.

Conclusion

The August 19, 2025 outage should be a wake-up call. Repeating the disruption timeline of 2022 shows that fixes implemented so far are insufficient. Pakistan needs coordinated technical, regulatory and investment responses to harden its digital backbone. Without decisive action, each outage will cost money, stall growth and erode trust in Pakistan as a reliable digital partner.