Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Eight domestic and international flights from Islamabad’s Benazir Bhutto International Airport were cancelled on Sunday due to the Internet disruption caused by a fault in the submarine cable.

Airport officials said that the reason behind the cancellation of flights was the slow Internet speed caused by a fault in the India-Middle East-Western Europe submarine cable. Due to the fault, the flight schedules and ticket booking could not be confirmed.

“It is difficult to tell when the flight schedule will return back to normal,” the officials said, adding that flights would resume fully when Internet services were restored.

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority and Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) had earlier said that Internet services in the country had been affected due to the fault in the undersea cable.

Earlier, the PTCL spokesperson said that efforts were underway to repair the cable.

According to ProPakistani, two other submarine cables, SEA-ME-WE 4 and TW1, had been offline since last month due to similar flaws, which had resulted in a bottleneck after I-ME-WE’s breakdown.

The loss of these three submarine cables had left Pakistan relying on SEA-ME-WE 3, SEA-ME-WE 5 and the AAE-1 submarine cables, out of which SEA-ME-WE 3 operates in a limited capacity, while the other two were installed only recently, ProPakistani had said.

Later on Sunday, the PTCL announced that the Internet services across the country had been restored.

PTCL General Manager Imran Janjua said that Internet services had begun to be restored countrywide.

Dominion Mall: The Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) on Sunday directed owner of the under-construction Dominion Mall, located in Phase-VIII Bahria Town, Rawalpindi to stop illegal advertisements and the construction work.

The Metropolitan and Traffic Engineering (MPTE) said that the advertisements stating that the project had been approved by the RDA were illegal.

MPTE Director Jamshaid Aftab has issued notices to Hashmat Iqbal, owner of the Dominion Mall, and a marketing company and directed them to stop illegal advertisement campaign.

The notice stated that the construction of 800 shops and 1,200 apartments in the mall were unauthorised. The notice warned the owner that if the construction work and advertisement was not stopped immediately, RDA would seal the site office of the mall.

Earlier, Rawalpindi Commissioner Talat Mahmood Gondal has directed the Enforcement Wing to take stern action against illegal/unauthorised commercial and residential construction activities.

Published in Daily Times, August 7^th 2017.