Fixed line broadband internet connectivity in Bangladesh has been partially restored in select areas and for certain business sectors after a five-day blackout that has reportedly wreaked havoc on almost every aspect of life in the country.
Bangladesh’s internet went dark on Thursday after student protests against a new jobs quota system turned violent. Netblocks reported a partial restoration of broadband connectivity for fixed-line services on Tuesday night. Mobile internet and access to social media sites remained restricted as we went to post.
According to the Daily Star, state minister for Posts, Telecommunications and ICT Zunaid Ahmad Palak said the restoration will be on a “trial basis”, with priorities given to the banking, commercial, technology, exports, outsourcing and media sectors.
Speaking during a briefing at the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) on Tuesday, Palak said restoration of internet service to the rest of the country will “soon follow”, but didn’t say if users would be able to access social media. He also said he would address restoration of mobile internet on Wednesday, the report said.
According to AFP, the decision to restore internet services reportedly came after Nahid Islam, leader of Students Against Discrimination, one of the organisers of the demonstrations, announced on Monday that protests would be suspended for 48 hours in hopes of avoiding further bloodshed. At least 173 people have been killed during the violence, and over 2,580 people arrested.
The ministry and the BTRC continue to claim that the five-day blackout was not by order of the government, but was caused by demonstrators attacking data centres in the Dhaka neighbourhood of Mohakhali and vandalising broadband equipment. Anonymous sources at service providers have told media outlets the government ordered them to shut down services.
Officials at the data centre facility in Mohakhali told the Daily Star that the fire broke out in the building of the Department of Disaster Management next to the data centres. While the fire damaged several overhead cables connected to the data centres, the data centres themselves were fine.
Mohiuddin Ahmed, president of the Bangladesh Mobile Phone Consumers Association, told the newspaper that even if those data centres had been completely destroyed, no more than 25% of internet users would have been affected, as major ISPs don’t keep servers there and connection redundancy is designed into the system.
Similarly, any damage to broadband equipment would only affect the immediate service area, not the entire country, he said.
At the time of the data centre fire, the Internet Service Providers Association of Bangladesh (ISPAB) said the damage may reduce bandwidth capacity by 30% to 40%, which would result in some users being cut off and others experiencing slow data speeds, the report said.
Meanwhile, various sectors are counting the cost of being offline for five days. The Daily Star reports that telecom operators say they are losing around BDT350 million (US$2.9 million) to BDT400 million in revenue per day due to the mobile internet outage.
Fahim Ahmed, CEO of ride-hailing company Pathao, told the paper that the digital commerce sector – includes e-commerce, logistics and ride-hailing services – is losing US$5 million per day.
A separate Daily Star report said that the Chattogram port was experiencing severe container congestion due to having to process operations manually. Almost 79% of the port’s storage capacity was occupied, making unloading and loading of containers difficult and boosting storage costs for importers.
According to a report from AFP, Bangladesh’s business process outsourcing (BPO) industry has been losing US$7 million a day since the start of the blackout, and BPO companies are afraid their clients will switch to regional BPO rivals in India, the Philippines and Vietnam.
The internet blackout also brought mobile financial services to a halt, leaving many people with no money, the Star said.
