Internet services have been fully restored across Islamabad and Rawalpindi after technicians repaired a damaged optical‑fibre cable that caused a city‑wide outage on 27 September 2026. The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) confirmed that connectivity was re‑established by early afternoon, allowing residents and businesses to resume normal online activities.
The disruption began early on Saturday, when a cut in an underground fibre‑optic line – part of the main backbone that links the twin cities to the national telecom network – triggered intermittent loss of broadband, mobile data and VoIP services in several districts. Users reported slow speeds, frequent disconnections and complete outages in areas such as G-10, F‑6 and Saddar, prompting a surge of complaints on social media and to service providers.
Within a few hours of the fault being logged, PTA‑approved repair crews were dispatched to the affected segment. By 2 p.m., the broken cable had been spliced and tested, and network traffic was restored to its pre‑incident level. In a statement, the PTA thanked the field engineers for their swift response and urged the public to report any lingering issues through the authority’s helpline.
The outage, though resolved within the day, underscored the reliance of Islamabad‑Rawalpindi’s burgeoning digital economy on resilient infrastructure. Freelancers, call‑centres and e‑commerce platforms that operate around the clock faced interruptions to client communications, online transactions and remote‑learning sessions, highlighting how even brief service lapses can affect productivity and revenue.
Telecom officials noted that the city’s expanding 5G rollout and increasing demand for high‑speed broadband make rapid fault detection and repair critical. The incident is the latest in a series of infrastructure challenges that have prompted the PTA to accelerate upgrades of underground cabling and to promote redundant routing to mitigate future disruptions.
Users who continue to experience connectivity problems are advised to contact their internet service providers or the PTA’s 24‑hour support line. The authority also indicated that it will conduct a post‑incident review to identify preventive measures and ensure that similar faults are addressed more swiftly in the future.