In Pakistan during the summer of 2024, there were reports of connections dropping, which led to the usual suspects taking the blame. Undersea cables were blamed for the problems, the telecom companies gave generic comments about technical issues, and users assumed everything would be resolved in a day or two. The delays continued for weeks, with WhatsApp media not working, VPNs malfunctioning, and reports often linking the problems to the introduction of a national web management system commonly described as a firewall. Officials acknowledged upgrades to the system but disputed claims that it was responsible for the slowdowns.
Other less talked about casualties included retail currency and commodity traders. Although it is old, MetaTrader 4 remains a popular retail trading platform in the country, requiring a constant internet connection for live prices and sending orders to the broker’s server. The platform can display stale prices, show a no connection message in the corner of the screen, or refuse to accept orders at all. The connection problems were especially frustrating when share and currency prices were changing quickly. The interruptions were a particular concern for those using MetaTrader 4 to manage positions throughout the trading day.
It could be worse to suffer from latency than from an actual connection failure. While a complete disconnection is at least apparent, a slow connection may give the appearance that all is well until a trade executes many pips away from the previously expected price. Some traders were especially vulnerable, including scalpers and traders who deal with big news like the employment report in the U.S., where they rely on execution in fractions of a second. Requotes, stop-loss orders executing at unexpected prices, and trades closing at prices worse than those shown a few moments before are all possible during volatile trading. Poor connections could make these situations harder to manage, although such problems are not necessarily caused by internet delays alone.
There were complications created by workarounds. Some traders resorted to using VPNs to bypass connection problems, but additional routing could cause delays in the trading process, and a number of VPN services were degraded as well. The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority’s efforts to register VPNs brought some confusion as users were not sure which services would be stable. Others could rent virtual private servers in Europe or Asia and use the MetaTrader 4 software remotely, meaning that trading software would run from a data center closer to the broker. The weak link was still the user’s ability to connect to the remote server. For mobile traders, there was a smaller choice of options. Many retail traders manage their entire trading activity from smartphones using cellular data, and mobile networks were also affected by slowdowns and targeted shutdowns during political demonstrations. A trader could receive an SMS alert for a price change while being unable to act on it.
The estimated wider economic damage was particularly concerning for freelancers and exporters in the IT industry, with industry bodies warning of substantial financial losses. The losses suffered in trading were more difficult to assess, in part because many retail trades are conducted through offshore accounts for which comprehensive public data is not available. Despite all this, it is possible that the disruptions caused some traders to scale back their positions, refrain from trading overnight, or completely give up trading in the short term. The extent of these decisions remains unclear without reliable figures or documented trader accounts.
Later news reports in the local media said the firewall was turned off in anticipation of the 5G spectrum auction, but officials denied those reports in February 2026 and said the Web Management System remained operational. The whole episode left its impression. After the problems in 2024, traders in Pakistan had good reason to think about what they would do if their internet stopped working during a trade. Some could keep a backup connection or run MetaTrader 4 on a remote server. Mobile alerts were useful too, although receiving an alert was no help if the connection was too poor to open the trading account. The market could be running normally while a trader in Pakistan was unable to do anything with an open position.