No Evidence of Internet Slowdown or VPN Blockage, PTA Chairman Clarifies

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) Chairman Major General (R) Hafeezur Rehman rejected claims on Thursday that the country’s internet was experiencing slow speeds. He also confirmed that no VPNs had been disabled so far.

Today, he spoke before the Senate Standing Committee on IT and Telecom in Islamabad, and he promised that all issues would be resolved once the regulator began licensing VPNs on January 1st.

In response to the committee’s concerns about the government’s plan to restrict internet speed in Pakistan, the PTA chairman stated that no such policy existed at that time. Internet service interruptions are strictly limited to situations involving threats to national security, according to the IT secretary.

The chairman made the observation that the regulator should not be held liable for any such policy and that the matter should be directed to the federal government for resolution.

The head of Pakistan’s Software Houses Association for Information Technology and Related Services (P@SHA) has warned that VPNs are under constant surveillance by governments throughout the world and has proposed the establishment of VPN providers. Internet outages are costly for businesses in the information technology sector; the chairman projected a $910,000 loss for every hour that the sector is down.