00:00To make the internet better and to make bandwidth available, I am very happy to announce in Pakistan
00:08and this is definitely a good news for Pakistanis, that four new cables are being brought to Pakistan.
00:17One of them is SMW6 to Africa, which will come to Pakistan through Transweld.
00:23Similarly, there is Africa 1, which will come through PDCL.
00:27Similarly, there is Makran Gulf Gateway, which will connect Pakistan to the Gulf and Karachi to Gwadar.
00:35So, international connectivity and all these cables that you see that bring internet to Pakistan,
00:41they are being increased, Pakistan's capacity is being increased,
00:45so that for the people of Pakistan, a better, high-speed, reliable internet can be created.
00:52And we hope that once these cables come,
00:55similarly, we have cleared a lot of bandwidth that was stuck in our spectrum in litigation.
01:02We are trying to make that spectrum available as soon as possible to different telcos,
01:07internet service providers, so that when that spectrum is available,
01:11the speed of the internet and the quality of the internet can be improved.
01:16So, these were the few requests that I wanted to make.
01:19I have an idea that since our government started, I have not had a detailed conversation with you,
01:26and I was trying to talk to the people.
01:30Finally, I would like to say that I have an idea that recently,
01:34there was a frustration of the people regarding the internet.
01:37We saw it on social media, we saw it on the media that there were talks about it.
01:42I would just like to clarify a few things.
01:47The internet was not shut down by any government,
01:52nor was the internet slowed down at any level.
01:57The news that the internet is being throttled was completely wrong.
02:02A few services of some apps, because the downloading of those services was not happening there,
02:09the majority of the population of Pakistan started operating on VPNs.
02:15When you operate on VPN, I would like to explain a little,
02:20that when the internet comes, there are CDNs in every country's territory.
02:26Those CDNs are your local caches,
02:31when you stream to the public, for example, you have streamed a video,
02:36it is coming from local CDNs.
02:39CDNs are content delivery networks, and these local caches keep them safe.
02:45So when you download a picture, you stream a video,
02:51it is available to you from a local network.
02:54It is not available from the internet across the border on the live internet.
02:58And the majority of the bandwidth of Pakistan is being run by CDNs,
03:03and you are getting it from local caches.
03:05But when you turn on the VPN, the CDNs, the local caches,
03:09from which you are getting the internet and all your services are coming,
03:12by bypassing them, you go to the live internet and go to the live server.
03:18What happens is that when a lot of people stop using caches and go to the live internet,
03:24then there is a pressure on the whole live internet,
03:27and generally the internet slows down.
03:31You will see that when you turn on the VPN on your phone,
03:34the phone slows down automatically.
03:36The reason for this is that when you connect directly from a distant server,
03:40some latency increases, and in the same way,
03:43you bypass the local caches, the local services that are available to you.
03:48So because of that, the pressure on the internet was a pressure of natural traffic,
03:53because of which we saw a slowdown in the speed of the internet for a day or two.
03:57But I can tell you that the government of Pakistan did not shut down the internet,
04:02nor did it slow it down.
04:04The talks on social media, other than that, this matter has been resolved today.
04:09Until this matter was resolved, I did not consider it appropriate to talk with incomplete information.
04:14Anyway, we stayed up all night, we talked to technical experts,
04:18asked different internet service providers,
04:21and next week I also requested internet service providers and telecom,
04:26to meet them.
04:27I also requested the PTA.
04:29The PTA has supported us a lot in all this.
04:31We have requested that we meet again,
04:34so that we can see that in the coming times,
04:36we can make it certain that the common user will never face such difficulties.
04:42So this was some explanation, which I thought was necessary,
04:46so that I could reach the public.
04:48I would like to say that the voice that was raised,
04:52that perhaps the government has shut down the internet for some reason,
04:57there was no absolute truth in it.
05:00And I would like to say to all of you,
05:03that we need to talk about Pakistan with great responsibility.
05:08When we talk on the internet, on social media, on electronic media,
05:12the thing that harms our industry the most,
05:17is our perception.
05:19What is Pakistan's perception?
05:21There was a time when security was a problem in Pakistan.
05:26You must remember how much terrorism was in 2013.
05:29Then in four years, when terrorism ended,
05:31we saw that foreign direct investment came, electricity came back,
05:34gas came back, Pakistan's GDP increased by 6.1%.
05:40Similarly, today, the internet is a very, very critical thing,
05:45which we need to talk about with great responsibility.
05:51Because its harm is less for the government,
05:55but for the child sitting in the city,
05:58the child who is freelancing to earn a living,
06:03they face a lot of loss.
06:05The industry faces difficulties in getting investment.
06:08When Pakistan's perception is hurt,
06:11I will completely agree that we have structural problems,
06:16there is congestion in the bandwidth.
06:18We are trying to improve all those things, as I told you.
06:22There was an issue with the health of the telecom sector,
06:25their revenues are very constrained.
06:27We are trying to help them so that they can invest in better infrastructure.
06:34As I told you, the government of Pakistan is putting in so much budget,
06:39making policies, working day and night,
06:42working on digitization.
06:44Our Saturdays and Sundays are also on, by the Prime Minister.
06:47When we are working 24 hours a day to sell this,
06:52I will tell you this much,
06:56I will assure you that the government is trying its best
07:00to stand behind the industry in support of the industry.
07:03We will always stand.
07:05We will need to invest in better marketing,
07:08we will need to provide better human resources for the industry,
07:12we will need infrastructure availability,
07:14we will need reliability.
07:16The government of Pakistan, with the industry,
07:19with its youth,
07:20and for the sales of the IT sector,
07:22you will see it taking the lead.
07:26Thank you very much.
07:30Thank you very much.
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