‘Internet doesn’t work, telling client is suicide:’ Pakistani freelancer

Most of the people in Pakistan are suffering from a mental stress for the past few weeks and this stress is the slowest internet speed in the country. Internet Where laziness has disrupted social relations Online The work of the business people has also been put in sour.

Independent Urdu also spoke to some of the same people whose livelihood revolves around the internet.

One of them spoke to a woman who is currently hospitalized due to the stress of business loss due to slow internet.

Because his family doesn’t know that he is in the hospital Mental stress Therefore, we are not disclosing his name and company name here on his request.

The said woman has been working in digital marketing for the past several years and as a freelancer doing international team outsourcing and working through various online freelancing platforms.

The said woman said that her work is ‘task based, the order comes, we deliver it and we get paid for it. Sometimes there are big projects where we get paid by the hour, we do the work and we get paid.’

“All our work is done entirely through the internet and all the work on various social networking sites is content-based and we also have video work for YouTube which is very heavy,” he said.

He said that the size of each project is in gigabytes and due to the lack of internet, we are not able to download the videos that the clients send us.

On the other hand, even if we have to edit the video and send it back to the client, the files cannot even be uploaded due to the slowness of the internet.

‘Campaigns are designed for marketing, clients send us data, we send it back to them for approval, but these days even this data is not transferable.

“All our work is cloud-based, so you have to log in and work on it, for example, if you look at stock images, you have to download the image from the cloud and use it, but the website itself does not load. .’

The freelancer said that ‘X (Twitter) was banned earlier. There are ad promotions on X but due to the ban all our X work is already stopped because if we turn on VPN for it then the rest of our internet stops working. So now we are not working on X.’

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According to him: ‘We have drastically reduced our editing work due to the internet being slow even for YouTube.

Also, when we do e-commerce, our customer support should be on all the time. Our team is continuously providing live chat support or customer support to international clients through call center.

“But because of the internet, the work of the call center has been greatly affected because if your internet is down and no one picks up the call from the outside client, what will happen?” Clients of call centers are shutting down their operations in Pakistan.’

“Similarly, we have to talk to clients through Zoom or video calls on meetings,” he added. Internet becomes slower when we turn on the camera.

“After turning off all the screens, we turn on the video call on a screen that makes the client feel like we’re talking from home or we’re deceiving them because they don’t feel like they’re in the office.”

‘If we tell our client that we have internet problems, it will be suicide because we don’t have internet in our work, so who will work with us?’

He said that ‘the slowness of the Internet has had a very bad effect on our economy. whatever Freelancer If working, their country name and badge are going along with their name on freelancing platforms.

“Due to slow internet speed in Pakistan, all the freelancers who were working on different platforms like Fiver, they have put a flag there with Pakistani freelancers that they are working from Pakistan. There are Internet problems, whoever works with them will be responsible for this work, we will not be responsible.

He said that ‘on the basis of these reasons, he had to dismiss some employees of his office against his will.

‘Internet speed is a bit better at night so I added a shift till 4am which made me sick myself due to lack of sleep and mounting financial problems and stress.’

Shahzad Khan, a digital entrepreneur and online services provider, is also currently facing difficulties due to slow internet.

Talking to Independent Urdu, Shahzad said that his business has been directly affected due to slow internet speed.

‘I had a personal brand on Twitter where I talked about my expertise, sharing my knowledge with people and businesses who would reach out and hire me.’

“Seven different businesses used to book calls directly from me and do work with me when I was active, but now Twitter has flagged my account and won’t let me log in anymore,” he said. Because I used VPN.

“The VPN keeps changing your location, which makes your account suspicious,” he said. He said that I used to pay 2-3 thousand rupees per month to Twitter to verify my account. They too went in vain.’

“I paid a coach $5,000 to learn how to get Twitter and clients, and that went down the drain,” he said.

According to Shahzad, his other businesses have also suffered directly due to lack of internet in Pakistan.

They said they run ads for sales. People buy and we fulfill their demand, but when the Internet is disrupted, the performance of those ads drops. which results in direct loss of income.’

Talking about it further, he said that the government has imposed a tax of 20 to 30 percent on the money I spend on advertising. A thousand rupees have to be paid and it directly eats into my profits.’

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Shahzad said that he and his colleagues have also been affected by this internet problem.

According to him, ‘People who offer their services through freelance platforms like Fiverr, Upwork, etc. are losing their accounts because they have to use a VPN. Using a VPN is a must.

‘Because they have to deliver what they promised to the client. And like I said before VPN changes its location which makes the website believe that the accounts are suspicious.

“It is very difficult to see your years of hard work go to waste like this,” he said.

Independent Urdu also spoke to Bilal Aslam, who works as a visa consultant, who also said that the travel and online education industry has also been affected due to internet shutdowns and slow speeds.

He said that ‘your visa application forms are filled online. For example, if you have to fill the form for obtaining a visit visa for UK, then the entire form has to be downloaded first and then uploaded.

“The connection should not be broken during this time, otherwise your information will not be saved and you will have to fill the form again, so what was supposed to be done in one day will be completed in three to four days and this is a big challenge. .’

Regarding the online education industry, Bilal said that ‘in it you have live classes and live exams. If there is no internet, neither the students will be able to take those classes online nor will they be able to take the exam.

He said that ‘our monthly 30 to 35 students are suffering from this problem.’

He said that ‘if you are giving the academic exams online and the internet is shut down in the middle, how will it be completed? How will the university know that the exam failed because of the internet?

“International universities also conduct online interviews for admission. Students prepare for this credibility interview for a couple of months and when the interview comes, the internet is not working or midway. If it is closed, then your interview has gone.’

He said that ‘universities can take this in any way that the student was not comfortable or did not know how to give an interview, so he left in the middle and made the excuse of the internet and after that. It will be difficult to say when they will interview again.

“Similarly, embassies conduct online interviews for study visas, in which they pay attention to one thing that you have not lowered your eyes, are not looking at a book, and if you are offline due to the Internet. If they go, it puts them in doubt.’

He said that people were looking at the Internet as a way to enter the future, but now this thinking is changing in Pakistan. I have many people who want to go out of the country with a digital nomad visa so that they can sit and work in another country.’

The Pakistan Software Houses Association has also expressed its displeasure over the Internet problems and in a press release issued on its official website said that the association condemns the dire consequences of the hastily implemented national firewall. .’

‘The fast-growing IT industry is facing a disaster, plagued by unprecedented operational constraints that threaten the foundations of Pakistan’s growing tech sector.’

On the other hand, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) Chairman Major General (retd) Hafeezur Rehman said on Wednesday that his department is working on the Internet firewall in the country on the instructions of the government.

He attributed the slowness of the Internet in the country to the failure of the submarine cable and said that 7.5 terabytes of Internet data is transmitted from one underwater cable and there are seven such cables in Pakistan, one of which is defective. .

‘Using a VPN in such a situation caused the internet to go down. This cable will be fixed by August 27.