Federal Govt Official Urges ‘Less’ Internet Use, Only for Important Matters

On Sunday, Syed Sajid Mehdi, Pakistan’s Parliamentary Secretary for the Cabinet Division, proposed a solution to the country’s regular internet slowdowns: citizens should “use the internet less” and for “important matters only.”

An official recently spoke to a private news channel and suggested that people cut back on their internet use to reduce traffic difficulties.

In comparison to India’s 45.5 percent fiber capacity, he claimed that Pakistan’s internet infrastructure is struggling under the weight of heavy traffic.

He went on to say that the network is currently being upgraded and that improvements should be visible in three to four months. To elaborate, the official said that the poor speeds are due to the increasing population. People should be more disciplined with their internet use, avoiding pointless activities and cutting back on excessive use for the system’s good.

According to experts in digital analysis, the government has been experimenting with a “firewall” that keeps checks on certain platforms and grants the authority to ban content, such as protest rally images and videos posted on WhatsApp.

A one-hour internet slowdown might not have any significant impact on people, but disturbed services to a client in any advanced country would eventually lead to a loss of confidence in Pakistan’s IT sector, according to P@sha Chairman Sajjad Mustafa Syed (quoted on December 3).

The official denied reports that internet failures cost over $1 million per hour and claimed that no formal complaints had been filed regarding these losses.

The secretary encouraged people to restrict their online activity to essential tasks only and stressed that population pressures and infrastructural limits are the main reasons for poor internet connections.