Islamabad- Pakistan’s internet speed is facing a notable decline due to the growing use of VPNs, as highlighted in a recent PTA report.
What began as a privacy tool has evolved into a significant contributor to network congestion, putting pressure on bandwidth and leading to foreign exchange losses.
The report emphasizes the need for urgent upgrades to Pakistan’s submarine cable capacity and improvements in local routing systems to address this escalating issue.
VPN traffic reached 634 GBPS in August, dropped to 597 GBPS in September, spiked to 815 GBPS in October, and decreased to 378 GBPS in November. After some improvements in December, it fell to 437 GBPS.
This surge in VPN usage is straining Pakistan’s internet infrastructure, bypassing local Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) that manage 70% of the country’s internet traffic. As a result, traffic is being rerouted to international servers, putting additional stress on global submarine cable capacity, which is already limited.
Additionally, each megabyte of VPN traffic costs around one dollar, and with a bandwidth increase of 1 TBPS, Pakistan is losing almost $10,000 per minute.
The report highlights the urgent need to expand submarine cable capacity and enhance local routing systems to improve internet speeds and lessen reliance on international servers.
