ISLAMABAD: According to official sources, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has launched the second experiment to use the new national firewall to shut down unregistered Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) before launching a full crackdown in December.
The PTA has set a deadline of November 30 for VPN registration; unregistered VPNs will be blocked beginning the next month. Thus far, over 25,000 VPNs have been registered.
The goal of the authority is to expedite the whitelisting and VPN registration procedures. Unregistered VPNs have been prohibited by nations like China, Russia, Iran, Turkey, and others. Some nations only permit VPNs for business purposes, and the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia further prohibit unregistered VPNs. According to PTA authorities, VPN use for business purposes is unrestricted in Pakistan.
Notably, for some hours, customers in Pakistan have been complaining about problems with free VPNs. To access the social media site X, many users relied on free VPNs; however, they are now alleging that these services are no longer functional.
