Pakistan’s worsening power crisis is now spilling into the digital space, with “internet load shedding” emerging as a new concern. Prolonged and unannounced electricity outages are severely impacting telecom services and frustrating users across the country.
The telecom sector and consumers are being badly affected by increasing unannounced load shedding across Pakistan. Alongside electricity cuts, disruptions in mobile and internet services have also intensified.
Industry sources say repeated outages are directly impacting the availability and quality of mobile network services nationwide.
Consumers are reporting a range of issues, including frequent call drops, slow internet speeds, and even complete network shutdowns. Both urban and rural users have complained that mobile internet remains unavailable for hours at a time, adding to daily inconveniences.
Thousands of mobile sites affected
According to telecom sources, thousands of mobile towers across the country are being affected due to the ongoing energy crisis. Companies are struggling to keep their infrastructure running as power supply becomes increasingly unreliable.
Backup arrangements at mobile towers are proving insufficient, particularly in rural and remote areas. Sources say that power backup systems are either weak or completely non-existent in many locations.
Battery backup at most towers lasts only between two to six hours, making it difficult to sustain services during prolonged outages.
Rising fuel costs
Telecom operators say maintaining network quality has become increasingly difficult due to rising operational costs.
With petrol and diesel prices already high, running generators during long periods of load shedding has become financially challenging. In many areas, providing generator-based backup is simply not feasible.
Quality of service
As energy-based operational costs increase manifold, telecom companies are finding it harder to keep all mobile towers operational 24 hours a day.
The ongoing crisis is not only affecting service quality but also raising concerns about the long-term sustainability of telecom operations under persistent power shortages.
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