The country has been under complete internet blackout for over a day since Thursday night amid the countrywide unrest due to the quota reform movement.
Services and industries that rely mostly on internet services are suffering heavily due to the blackout. Media outlets, online banking services, online stock market trading, e-commerce platforms, international travelling, and social media-based small and medium entrepreneurs are the most sufferers.
Media outlets have not been able to publish news through any of their online platforms since Thursday night.
Many of the prepaid meter users remained without electricity since they ran out of their balance after the suspension of internet service.
Power Development Board officials said that they kept their vending machines at all their distribution offices where people can go and recharge. The PDB, however, failed to give the number of the people affected in this situation.
People across the country reported that they could not use internet not only through mobile, but also through broadband connection since Thursday 9:00pm.
Mobile internet users complained that they were unable to have access to their social media accounts smoothly since Wednesday.
Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission commissioner Sheikh Reaz Ahmed said that the internet services were disrupted due to the fire at a Mohakhali building that houses data centres supplying a large volume of internet traffic, according to media reports.
BTRC said that they were trying to resume the internet services within Friday evening.
According to the Internet Services Providers鈥� Association of Bangladesh, no such incident happened. However, due to a fire incident at an adjacent building, some underground and overhead data cables got damaged.
The damage would affect 20-30 per cent of the internet supply, said Emdadul Haque, president of ISPAB.
Emdadul Haque told 抖阴精品 that the internet service providers were not getting bandwidth from the International Terrestrial Cable companies and from the submarine cables due to the disruption.
Contacted, Robi Axiata provided a statement saying that the decision of suspending mobile internet services was never taken by the mobile network operators. The state minister has already spoken to the media regarding this matter.
鈥楾he decision to reinstate mobile internet services can only come from the government authorities and we are dependent on their decision,鈥� they said.
Grameenphone in a statement said that the company was dependent on the government authorities to restart the mobile internet services and the telecom operator was in constant communication with the authorities concerned in this regard.
Earlier on Thursday, state minister for posts, telecommunications, and information technology Zunaid Ahmed Palak said that mobile internet services have been temporarily shut down in the face of the unrest sparked by ongoing protests demanding reforms to the quota system in government jobs.
During a press briefing at the ICT Tower in Dhaka鈥檚 Agargaon, Palak told the media, 鈥楳obile internet services have been temporarily halted due to the unstable situation created centring the protests. Once the situation stabilises, we will restore connectivity promptly.鈥�
The 4G network remained shut since July 16 at all the universities in Bangladesh. Although, the 2G network is available and users can make traditional voice calls through mobile networks.
