Social media is not the only thing happening on the Internet. Alongside photos of the latest meal someone has had, or a cute kitten, flood relief activities are reliant on the Internet. This is not just because social media has made the transmission of information that much more rapid, but has made that information that much more precise. The guessing has been taken out of relief or rescue efforts. Of course, all these benefits will only flow if the Internet is actually up. One of the problems with flooding is that the heavy machinery used to clear water from flooded areas will cut the fibre-optic cable that carries the Internet.
The recent outages appear to have been caused by digging trenches to drain floodwater in Ghotki, Sukkur and Khairpur districts. Even though some redundancy has been built in, with a total usage of around six terabytes of data, Pakistan has now been shown to be vulnerable. PTCL not only is in the business as a retail Internet Service Provider (ISP), but it also provides bulk bandwidth to other ISPs, and operates four of the seven cables which link the country to the Internet.
The floods are likely to be worse next year, as climate change takes effect. Even if they are not as bad, unless the monsoon fails, which is as disastrous as too much rain, this particular problem will persist. Along with the measures the government must take in other areas, a survey of vulnerability of Internet cables would provide a baseline from which the prevention of outages next year can take a start. The government might also remember that some of the world’s most digitized societies, like Japan and Korea, also experience monsoons, while Japan also experiences earthquakes. Best practices can be learnt from these countries, and duly implemented. Apart from the government keeping citizens online, the ISPs also have an interest in licking this problem.
