40% broadband connections restored but users struggle with slow speed

Nearly 40% of the country's over 1.1 crore broadband connections have been restored in the past 17 hours, according to the Internet Service Providers Association of Bangladesh (ISPAB).

However, firms and families are struggling to use the internet smoothly due to poor speed and the data-hungry commercial activities were yet to get back to normal till 1:00pm today.

ISPAB President Md Emdadul Hoque told TBS, all the government offices, emergency services, hospitals across the country got broadband internet back.

The identified hub areas for priority sectors listed by the government -- Motijheel, Gulshan, Banani Baridhara, DOHS and cantonment, Karwan Bazar -- got almost all the broadband connections restored in the capital, he said, adding the households in the areas also are connected.

"We could connect some 60-65% of the total prioritised commercial users," said Emdadul Hoque, adding that the rate will rise sharply by the end of the day.

Priority sector firms which operate from other areas than their sectoral hubs are communicating with their respective associations so that the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) learns about their need for internet and instructs the local internet service provider for quicker connection restoration, he added.

Business process outsourcing firms operating from the hub areas have already been connected, said Wahid Sharif, president of Bangladesh Association of Contact Center and Outsourcing.

"We are making a list of the still disconnected ones outside hub areas to send to respective service providers through the BTRC," he said.

The internet, albeit slow, made browsing, text communications and the basic tasks possible which is a big relief after a complete internet blackout for five straight days till Tuesday evening.

Data hungry live services or multimedia content outsourcing was struggling due to slower internet, he added.

Russel T Ahmed, president of Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services said, "We understand that connecting all the commercial users to resume the digital economy is the top priority right now and it should be followed by increasing the speed."

ISPAB's Emdadul Hoque said Bangladesh has a 6000 GBPS bandwidth capacity, while Google, Facebook's local cache servers help save five times bandwidth in the country.

There had been issues with the local cache servers of Google and Facebook. Resumption of it will be crucial for the best utilisation of international bandwidth, he added.

Social media services were still inaccessible from the restored broadband connections.