Srinagar businessman Basit Ahmad did not have a single fixed-line internet connection in August 2019. Now he has two – one for his home, an...
Srinagar businessman Basit Ahmad did not have a single fixed-line internet connection in August 2019. Now he has two – one for his home, another for his shop.
Mudasir Khaliq, an information technology professional who runs a software company in Srinagar, had a fixed-line broadband connection at his office. A resident of Pulwama district, he now has one for his home as well.
“With a broadband connection at home as well, it gets easier to work from home,” Khaliq said. “Otherwise, I would have to drive all the way to the office to access high-speed internet.”
The people of Jammu and Kashmir have lived through one of the longest internet shutdowns anywhere in the world. Two years later, they continue to deal with its aftermath.
Both mobile internet and fixed-line connections stopped working in Jammu and Kashmir hours before the Indian Parliament stripped the erstwhile state of its special constitutional status on August 5, 2019. Six months later, the government restored mobile internet at low speeds but fixed-line broadband was revived in the union territory as late as March 2020.
Despite the longer duration of broadband suspension, people are aggressively acquiring fixed-line internet connections. The number of fixed-line connections in Jammu and Kashmir is estimated to have nearly doubled from...
