Slow internet connectivity in Bangladesh till January 30

Dhaka, Jan 20 (IANS) Temporary disruption of web services in Bangladesh may continue till January 30 due to the maintenance work of the submarine cable, an official said on Friday.

The maintenance work of Tata Indicom Cable, that provides around half of the internet bandwidth that comes from India to Bangladesh, would take another week, Suman Ahmed Sabir, chief strategy officer of international internet gateway Fibre@Home, told The Daily Star.

However, Bharti Airtel's submarine cable 'i2i Media' which went down due to a cut in fibre connection on December 13, last year, was restored, Suman Ahmed added.

Internet users in Bangladesh were experiencing slow internet since January 4, due to technical glitches including the cable cut.

On January 5, Internet Service Providers' Association of Bangladesh (ISPAB) said in a press release that the disruption would continue for the next few days and internet service would be back in order only by January 20.

It was said that the internet connection would return to normalcy as soon as the maintenance work of India-Middle East-Western Europe (IMEWE) submarine cable and Bharti Airtel's 'i2i Media' would be completed, which the ISPAB expected to happen by January 20.

Three submarine cables that serve Bangladesh were cut or disconnected in last few days, read the release, signed by Mohammad Emdadul Haque, general secretary of ISPAB.

Bangladesh imports 280 gigabits per second (Gbps) from India out of the country's total bandwidth consumption of over 400 Gbps while the rest comes from state-owned Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Ltd (BSCCL).

The BSCCL is connected with the six Indian cables, three of which went out of order in the last three weeks.