The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) on Sunday evening attributed the disruption of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to a technical glitch and urged commercial users to register their VPNs and their IP addresses. Whitelist the
Apart from the ban on micro-blogging website ‘X’ (formerly Twitter), a large number of citizens are relying on VPNs due to difficulties in accessing other social media platforms due to slow internet.
However, citizens across the country faced problems accessing VPNs on Sunday evening following the intervention of the Pakistan Software Houses Association (PASHA), which represents IT-related businesses, to suspend the VPNs service. Started getting back to normal.
In response to a question, the PTA said that the closure of the VPNs was due to a technical glitch, but while emphasizing on the registration of the VPNs, it asked the Pakistan Software Houses Association to ensure that Make sure all their members complete this process immediately.
On the other hand, the Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) has urged the Pakistan Software Houses Association to register VPNs in the IT industry.
Later, Pakistan Software Houses Association has convened a virtual meeting today to encourage IT companies serving foreign customers regarding VPN registration.
Pasha Chairman Sajjad Mustafa Syed told Dawn that the use of VPN has increased with the expansion of IT business as foreign users do not operate on open internet connections.
“All our members use professional VPN with whitelisted IP address but we face serious problems when some of our experts work from other location and in such case they have to use private VPN,” he said. VPNs are required.
He said that Pasha has been urging freelancers to form their own small companies and work only through registered V-Apps to avoid any future restrictions.
The Pakistan Software Export Board’s letter confirmed that VPNs are used for legitimate purposes in various sectors including banking, foreign missions, corporate enterprises, universities, IT companies, call centers and freelance professionals in Pakistan. Allowed.
The letter added that the government is introducing stricter regulations on the use of VPNs to prevent security concerns and misuse.
PSEB has urged all IT firms, call centers, freelancers and related organizations to complete VPN registration with PTA immediately to avoid possible service disruptions while registration is being processed. The guidelines are available on the PTA website.
Around 20,000 VPNIP addresses have been registered in Pakistan since 2020. In August, PTA asked IT companies, call centers, freelancers, foreign missions and embassies to register their VPs. N Register but the authority did not get much success in its campaign.
Meanwhile, PTA sources say that the telecom regulator will soon start an awareness campaign about VPN registration and unregistered VPNs will be disabled in the near future.
It should be noted that there have been complaints of limited access to VPN from many Internet users in Pakistan, which was attributed to a ‘system error’.
