Satellite-based internet and TV services in Pakistan and many other regions will experience brief disruptions between September 29 and October 6, 2025, due to a natural phenomenon known as a sun outage.
Experts explain that a sun outage occurs when the Sun aligns directly behind a geostationary satellite from the perspective of ground antennas. The powerful radio emissions of Sun then overwhelm the signals from satellite, causing temporary interruptions. This is not a man-made problem or a cyberattack but a predictable natural event that happens twice a year.
In Pakistan, the outages are expected each morning around 8:30am local time, with duration ranging between three and thirteen minutes. On September 29, disruptions may last only three minutes, while on October 2 and 3, outages could extend to thirteen minutes.
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Satellite-based services including TV channels, internet, and broadcast feeds will be affected, particularly in regions where satellite is the primary connection. Internet delivered via fiber-optic cables, undersea links, or terrestrial wireless networks will remain unaffected.
For users, buffering content, scheduling non-urgent downloads outside the outage windows, or switching temporarily to mobile data may help. Broadcasters often take technical measures such as boosting transmission power or rerouting signals to reduce the impact.
Although short-lived, these interruptions may add to Pakistan’s existing connectivity challenges, where cable faults and bandwidth limits already affect service quality.