KARACHI, 4 July 2005 — Experts have traced the fault in the undersea cable by carrying out sonic tests, PTCL sources said.
The fault was traced by sending signals from land to the cable and the signals indicated a fault some 11 to 12 kilometers in the sea from Karachi, sources said.
Experts had been working since yesterday morning to trace the fault, PTCL spokesman Mashkoor Hussain said.
Experts came to the conclusion that the fault in the cable was somewhere between 11 to 12 kilometers from Karachi.
The fault developed in SEAMEWE-3 on June 27 caused a major Internet breakdown in Pakistan. The repair work was to begin late yesterday after sonic tests narrowed down the fault, officials said.
A submarine cable-laying and maintenance ship of Emirates Telecommunications Co, of the United Arab Emirates, arrived in Karachi on Saturday evening to repair the cable.
“We have narrowed down the fault after carrying out some sonic testing,” Mashkoor Hussain, who is also the vice president of operations at PTCL, told Reuters.
He said it was difficult to say how long it would take to carry out repairs. The faulty portion of the cable either had to be repaired or replaced with a new one, he added.
PTCL officials had earlier said the cable would be repaired by early next week. After the cable fault, PTCL provided businesses with satellite back-up systems, restoring some Internet access but most users remained offline.
Two new links, one a submarine cable and the other a land link with India, are being laid and are due to come on stream this year, officials say.
Pakistan has 25 call center operators employing up to 2,000 people, with a combined revenue of up to $15 million a year.
Earlier, a repair ship searched the Arabian Sea for the damage to the undersea cable.
Junaid I. Khan, chief executive officer of PTCL said about 50 percent of Internet links have been restored using the satellite backup system. PTCL officials have said some key Internet users — airlines, banks and the stock market — are using the backup system.
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.
— Additional input from agencies
