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| Business life affected by Internet shutdown in Pakistan: 'Unable to post on social media, orders not received |
No one got food orders due to the internet shutdown, no one could get their taxi out because the internet was not working outside, and no clicks on anyone's Facebook page. Because the Internet in Pakistan remained closed from Tuesday afternoon to Friday night.
Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) restored mobile internet service and social media platforms (YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter) across the country last night.
It may be recalled that after the arrest of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf Chairman Imran Khan from the Islamabad High Court on May 9, the government blocked mobile internet and social media apps across the country.
But the internet outage from Tuesday to Friday has badly affected the business of many people, with big software houses and people associated with IT services also facing severe difficulties.
The BBC has spoken to a few such people to find out how the four-day internet blackout has affected their lives and businesses.
Who would buy my cake?
Barira Nazo and Muhammad Sulaiman are siblings and both are business graduates. Two years ago he started his online banking business in a very backward district of Dera Ismail Khan and the business started well but for the last four days, he was sitting on his hands due to the internet shutdown.
Breira Nazo told the BBC that on normal days she used to get two to three orders of cakes and pastries, but during the last four days, she could not share her posts on social media because there was no internet, and Then buyers of cakes and baking goods also did not have access to social media to place orders.
Apart from this, they were not getting riders due to bad conditions. He had an old order which was supposed to be shipped yesterday but no rider was being contacted so he managed to deliver the cake himself.
Muhammad Sulaiman said that he has been involved in online business for some time and helps people in online business and when he saw his sister's passion for baking, he started this business together with his sister.
Our business is mostly run through Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. We put our posts on these social media platforms, so people see them on social media and order them, but in the last four days, they could not put any posts, so the orders did not come.
He says that many people do not use Wi-Fi here, instead, they use the 3G and 4G internet available on mobile phones, but since these services were suspended for three days, their business also stopped.
"All dependence has become on the Internet"
Muhammad Riaz is a driver and works with an online taxi app. He says that he was sitting in the house for three days.
"When I went out, the internet didn't work. Wi-Fi is installed at home, so a long-distance order was received yesterday.
"I have five children and the house depends on this car running," he says. On the one hand, the conditions outside are so bad that I could not take the car out and if I take the car out in safe areas, it is of no use because only petrol is wasted and no customers are found.
Muhammad Riaz said that in the past he used to drive a taxi, but for two years he has become associated with an online taxi app and has become completely dependent on the Internet. Now they have become so accustomed to it that the order is also available online.
He says that 'now it has become difficult to live without the Internet and in the last three days I have not received any income, I have only taken some loans to live, now God bless the situation and I can do my work.'
"Only three hundred clicks have come on my page"
Nusrat works on a web patch. He said that when the internet was shut down, clicks were not coming on his page. He works on a web page called Daman TV and gets more clicks on Facebook and YouTube.
He said that when the internet stopped, he was not able to do his work as usual because if he does not upload any news or video even for a day, he gets a negative marking, and then on normal days his news clicks come up to one lakh and last week the clicks only came to around three to four hundred.
He says, "Now we were working but the subscribers did not have internet, they could not come to our page, so we had to face a negative situation again."
The same impression will be made in foreign countries that investment in Pakistan is not right.
For the last four days, not only the internet was down, but the situation inside the country was also bad, which has had an impact on the international level as well.
Sadaf Baig, an IT export expert, told the BBC that 'not only those who depended on mobile data, but those who depended on Wi-Fi service which was working but their speed was not up to par. No work was being done.'
He said, "Our own work has been affected and due to the low speed, the software houses that do remote work were facing difficulties."
She says that many foreign companies work with Pakistani software houses, if the situation worsens here and the Internet is shut down, what will be the impression in other countries? Of course, it will be said that the investment in Pakistan is not right and it can cause a huge loss.
Sadaf says that 'Internet shutdown software companies related to exports and IT services and most of the self-employed have been affected.