Pakistan ranks second in terms of duration of internet outages in 2024, trailing only Myanmar by 1,861 hours, according to the Top 10 VPNs that collect data on internet outages worldwide.
This cost us an estimated $351 million, second only to our South Asian peers. Where we left everyone behind was that with nearly 83 million users, our number of ‘bad faith’ in work commitments was unparalleled, exceeding 40% of the 15 most vulnerable countries.
This is a serious reality check for Pakistan’s digital economy, which already faces challenges including macro uncertainty, capital shortages and talent shortages. Now, there is another tangible and unnecessary problem on the list, which would bring a building to a standstill.
Any Pakistani who interacts regularly with foreigners has probably mastered the art of answering tough questions, whether they are about the state of our democracy, human rights or security. This is a lot of context and a far cry from the occasional conversation or casual chat, but for most people, these are all small talk, with no real consequences.
The past few years have seen a major shift in the way we work with foreign clients, as questions about Pakistan go beyond the small talk and are directly related to the ability to execute tasks. It is no longer a theoretical ‘is it safe to go there?’ but rather a priori ‘can you guarantee the timely completion of the project given the internet situation?’
Pakistan has significantly improved its performance in terms of internet shutdowns and the duration of internet shutdowns, which was 259 hours in 2023, has now increased by 619%, which is 5 places above the seventh place globally, resulting in an increase in the costs that come with it by $ 114 million.
Trade organizations have presented their figures, with the Pakistan Software House Association claiming a loss of $ 1 million for every hour of internet shutdown. Amid the balance of payments crisis facing Pakistan, the information and communication sector has emerged as a strong source of dollars.
In 11 months of the year 2024, the IT sector contributed $ 3.3 billion to the national economy, which is only less than the textile and food groups and the third largest sector overall, especially in the services sector, it is the only category that consistently registers a surplus. Will the internet shutdown end it? Obviously not, but it increases the cost of operations for local tech companies, which is causing them to suffer.
More importantly, the internet shutdown discourages these companies from bringing back more forex than they need, further compounding the problem of undocumented exports, which by some estimates is on par with the officially recorded figures. While the latter is showing healthy growth, our rulers don’t really give much importance to the issue of undocumented exports, as it can’t be measured anyway.
However, what can be gauged is the slowdown in internet usage in Pakistan. According to Cloudflare, the country has seen a year-on-year decline in web traffic for most of 2024. In fact, during the first 11 months, there were a total of 30 days when the percentage change was not red. During this period, our highest growth rate was 3%, compared to 17% globally.
Keep in mind that the quality of the internet available to us is not at all good, with the average download speed in Pakistan being only 22 Mbps, compared to 97 Mbps in the Philippines, 37 Mbps in Bangladesh and 31 Mbps in Indonesia, Pakistan was also lagging far behind its counterparts in the region.
Incidents of internet shutdowns cause irreparable damage to the confidence of young and talented Pakistanis, what motivates them?
After all, the value of the hard-earned money of talented youth has reduced by more than half in the last few years, while everything has become more expensive in the same period.
Anyway, not everyone in Pakistan has all the rights, but at least everyone had access to the internet, but even that has started to take a hit.
