KARACHI: Large parts of Pakistan were knocked offline on Tuesday after another nationwide internet outage disrupted businesses, financial services and daily life in what industry officials called one of the most severe breakdowns in recent years.
In its statement, the Wireless and Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan (Wispap) said that nearly two-thirds of users were affected, according to estimates, marking a repeat of the countrywide blackout that struck on the same date in 2022, when floods crippled Pakistan’s main fibre routes. The coincidence has reignited concerns over the fragility of the country’s digital backbone.“This is a national failure,” said Shahzad Arshad, chairman of Wispap. “Internet outages are no longer rare accidents in Pakistan; they have become a recurring reality. For two-thirds of the country to go dark in 2025, on the very date we saw the same collapse in 2022, should ring alarm bells at every level of government.”
Arshad said reliable internet access is now as essential as electricity, with freelancers, hospitals, students and banks all dependent on uninterrupted connectivity. “Every hour offline costs Pakistan millions and damages our reputation internationally,” he added.
The industry group has urged regulators to diversify infrastructure by encouraging more providers, building regional internet exchanges and investing in redundancy. While smaller ISPs often keep some communities online during national outages, Arshad warned that without policy reforms they cannot offset systemic backbone failures.
“Pakistan’s digital future cannot remain hostage to single points of failure,” he said. “We need decisive reforms, not repeated apologies.
