Broadband internet restored in selected areas

Broadband internet connections were restored on a limited scale yesterday after 5 days of complete countrywide blackout amid the violence over quota protest.
The area-based partial restoration of the broadband service will be on a trial basis, with priorities initially given to the banking, commercial, technology, exports, outsourcing service providers, and media outlets, Zunaid Ahmad Palak, state minister for Posts, Telecommunications and ICT told a briefing at the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) yesterday.
The restoration of internet service to the rest of the country will soon follow, he added.
Asked if users would be able to use social media, Palak could not clarify the level of access to social media apps that the government could allow to be restored.
Asked about the restoration of mobile internet, he said he would address the matter today.
Earlier on Monday, International Internet Gateway (IIG) companies were given a list of social media and messaging apps at a meeting at the BTRC and instructed to submit a report on the success rate of blocking those apps after running trials, according to sources involved with the process.
They requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of matter.
While, the government and the BTRC said the internet blackout occurred due to the attack on the data centres in the capital's Mohakhali, the sources said the shutdown of the internet was ordered by the government.
Meanwhile, The Daily Star visited the data centres in question and found no sign of fire damage to the building that housed them.
Officials of these data centers also confirmed that the fire did not reach their offices.
They said the fire that broke out on Thursday in the building of the Department of Disaster Management in Mohakhali, adjacent to the data centers, has damaged several overhead cables connected to the data centers.
Even if these data centers were completely gutted by the fire, the internet connections of less than one-fourth of country's users at best should have been disrupted, Mohiuddin Ahmed, president of the Bangladesh Mobile Phone Consumers Association told this newspaper.
He went on to say that since there were redundancies and big internet service providers did not host their servers at those centers, the countrywide internet service should have been running largely smoothly.
Terming internet service as a basic need, Mohiuddin urged the government to restore internet for every citizen as soon as possible.
Multiple broadband service providers said many of their cables and equipments were vandalised during the recent violence, but it should have only resulted in suspension of internet connections in those specific areas, not complete blackout.
On July 17, after the government ordered the shutdown of mobile internet, Palak, state minister for ICT, said the decision was taken in light of the current unrest in the country and to stop the spread of fake news on social media.
On July 18, a fire broke out in the building of the Department of Disaster Management in Mohakhali, damaging the internet transmission lines of some data centers housed in an adjacent building.
On the same day, around 8:00pm, officials of Internet Service Providers Association of Bangladesh (ISPAB) said fire may eat away 30 to 40 percent of bandwidth supply, leaving some users disconnected and many with slow internet.
But around 9:00pm, Bangladesh went under a complete internet blackout.
Emdadul Haque, president of ISPAB, yesterday said though there are some works still going on to restore their damaged lines, they are now prepared to provide broadband internet across the country.
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