On August 20, 2025, Pakistan experienced a dramatic collapse in internet connectivity—dropping to just 20 percent of typical levels, according to global watchdog NetBlocks. This widespread outage, triggered by severe infrastructure failures in Karachi, exposed the fragility of the country’s digital backbone and sent shockwaves through its economy, society, and digital ecosystem. In a country where more than 116 million users rely on digital connections, for work, learning, healthcare, and essential services, the disruption brought daily life to a virtual standstill.
This article explores the causes, impacts, broader context, and long-term implications of this catastrophic outage, and concludes with seven frequently asked questions that help unpack the complexity of the situation.
What Caused the Internet Collapse?
The internet disruption can be traced back to torrential rains that flooded Karachi and its environs. The flooding halted fuel deliveries to telecom towers, causing backup generators to fail. Without fuel, even towers with automatic backups went silent, abruptly cutting service across Karachi.
What made matters worse was the centralized design of Pakistan’s internet infrastructure. Karachi hosts the majority of submarine cable landing stations and national backbone hubs. When connectivity in Karachi faltered, telecom operators nationwide—Jazz, Zong, Telenor, Ufone among them—had no alternative routing to rely on, resulting in a 20 percent connectivity metric that captured the scale of the outage.
The Economic Toll
The economic costs of such disruptions are severe and well-documented. Pakistan routinely ranks among the countries most affected by internet shutdowns. In 2024 alone, losses are estimated at $1.62 billion, making it the hardest-hit country globally in this regard. Such wide-ranging outages resemble virtual gridlock—slowing or halting nearly all e-commerce, online banking, gig economy services, freelancing, and education.
For context: a 24-hour nationwide shutdown was previously estimated to cost Rs 1.3 billion, which is more than 0.5 percent of daily GDP. Freelancers and IT firms bear a disproportionate burden, with disruptions in 2023 costing the telecom sector Rs 450 million per day, food delivery platforms losing up to 75 percent of orders, and cab services seeing a 97 percent drop.
The Broader Context: Recurring Shutdowns and Structural Vulnerabilities
This incident did not occur in isolation. Over the past few years, Pakistan has seen repeated internet disruptions:
- In 2024, over 9,700 hours of intentional outages affected nearly 83 million users, ranking Pakistan second globally for frequency of shutdowns, and first in terms of economic damage.
- Political instability around elections and protests, such as during general elections in February 2024 or protests in October and November, triggered shutdowns under the guise of security measures.
- Technical failures—like cuts to undersea submarine cables near Egypt or Karachi—have throttled or halted internet for days.
- The controversial national internet firewall, and VPN controls, have further slowed speeds and throttled access during testing or implementation phases.
All of this underscores a chronic issue: a digital infrastructure that lacks redundancy and is highly susceptible to outage, whether from environmental shocks, political decisions, or technical faults.
Impact Across Sectors
Freelancers & IT Sector
Freelancers contribute hundreds of millions in export revenue annually. Frequent outages deplete income streams, damage professional reputations, and result in lost contracts. Several have reported earnings dropping by two-thirds or more during outage periods.
Gig Economy & Everyday Services
Apps like ride-hailing and food delivery depend entirely on mobile internet. A three-day outage left thousands of workers stranded—and incurred heavy financial losses in the tens of millions of dollars.
Business, Banking & Payments
E-commerce, digital payments, and telecom platforms were severely disrupted—leading to transaction failures, canceled orders, and declining confidence in digital business continuity.
Education & Health
Remote education ground to a halt, while telemedicine and digital health services became unreachable—impacting students and patients alike.
Infrastructure Fragility and Governance Gaps
Several structural weaknesses were laid bare by the outage:
- Design Centralization: Concentrated submarine cables and core infrastructure in Karachi make national connectivity vulnerable to localized shocks.
- Fuel-Dependent Telecom Towers: Diesel generators not fuel-protected or backed by redundancy failed during floods.
- Lack of Legal Clarity: Shutdowns are often executed under vague directives, with regulatory bodies deflecting responsibility. Legal frameworks like PECA do not clearly authorize geographic shutdowns, leaving governance in ambiguity.
International Comparisons and What Can Be Done
Countries less vulnerable to such failures follow principles of diversification and resilience:
- Decentralized Infrastructure: Nations distribute cable landing sites across multiple cities and build mesh networks for redundancy.
- Renewable Powered Tower Networks: Sites backed by solar, batteries, and long-duration storage — less reliant on fuel supply chains.
- Disaster-Resilient Facilities: Elevated data centers and redundant network routing setups, akin to models in Japan and Singapore.
For Pakistan, viable solutions include:
Diversifying submarine cable landings beyond Karachi.
Mandating redundant backbone infrastructure to prevent single points of failure.
Investing in renewable-powered telecom towers.
Establishing transparent legal frameworks for emergency shutdowns.
Engaging public-private partnerships to finance and implement resilient infrastructure.
Long-Term Implications & Digital Competitiveness
The cumulative effects of frequent internet failures threaten Pakistan’s ambition to become a tech and export-oriented economy:
- Talent is migrating away as digital instability pushes freelancers and IT professionals to more stable environments abroad.
- Foreign investors remain wary, delaying or canceling investments due to fears about reliability.
- Digital management programs and “IT city” aspirations risk being hollow gestures if foundational connectivity remains shattered.
- Civil liberties and access to information are increasingly compromised through censorship and controlled access.
Unless Pakistan meaningfully strengthens its digital fortifications, every future rainstorm, protest, or political crisis may threaten to cut off the nation again.
Frequently Asked Questions
What triggered the internet drop to 20% nationwide?
Heavy rain in Karachi flooded access roads, cutting off fuel deliveries to telecom towers. With backup generators failing, disruption cascaded through centralized infrastructure, triggering a major nationwide connectivity collapse.
How much economic damage do such disruptions cause?
Nationwide shutdowns have cost Pakistan up to $1.62 billion in 2024, with daily losses ranging from hundreds of millions to more, depending on duration and scope.
Are such internet shutdowns common in Pakistan?
Yes. In 2024, Pakistan experienced over 9,700 hours of shutdowns and ranked second globally for frequency of outages. The disruptions impacted around 83 million users .
Who and what sectors are most affected?
Freelancers, gig workers, IT firms, e-commerce platforms, telehealth, remote students, and banks are all severely impacted—facing revenue losses, missed deadlines, canceled services, and reputational harm.
Why is Pakistan so vulnerable to such outages?
Because internet infrastructure is centralized in Karachi, telecom towers lack renewable power backups, and governance lacks transparent or resilient frameworks for emergencies.
What measures can prevent future collapses?
Improve resilience through distributed cable nodes, redundant backbone networks, renewable-backed telecom towers, disaster-resistant infrastructure, and clear regulatory frameworks.
What are the broader consequences for Pakistan’s digital future?
Recurring disruptions undermine the tech economy, discourage investment, erode public trust, and stifle Pakistan’s potential to grow as a digital exporter or innovation hub.
Conclusion
The August 2025 internet collapse in Pakistan was not just a technical glitch—it was a national emergency that exposed the precarious state of critical infrastructure. Digital access, once assumed to be as stable as electricity, became suddenly unreliable. As the country continues to modernize and invest in its digital economy, the lesson is clear: robust, redundant, and resilient infrastructure is not optional—it’s foundational.Without urgent reform, Pakistan risks repeating this fragility whenever the next storm hits, or political crisis unfolds. Yet, with strategic investments and governance reforms, it can build a digital system worthy of its future ambitions.