Damaged submarine cable repaired; internet speed restored
Data transmission companies claimed they were getting adequate bandwidth from the submarine cable
The damaged portion of the country's second submarine cable in Patuakhali has been repaired after a twelve-hour effort.
Internet supply has become normal again as local engineers completed the repair, said Mashiur Rahman, managing director of the Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Ltd (BSCCL).
However, internet users from different parts of the country expressed anger over the slow internet speed until Monday afternoon.
Sujit Shaha, a private service provider at a corporate office in Dhaka, told this reporter that he could not complete his office work due to the slow internet from Monday afternoon.
However, data transmission companies claimed that they were getting adequate bandwidth from the submarine cable.
Sumon Ahmed Sabir, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Fiber@Home Ltd, a leading Nationwide Telecommunication Transmission Network (NTTN) operator, said that there might be some other reason for the slow internet speed.
"We are getting the required volume of bandwidth from the second submarine cable. The supply resumed once the cable was repaired."
Earlier on Sunday, the bandwidth supply by internet service providers had been halved as the country's second submarine cable in Patuakhali was damaged by a local group during land development work.
"A local upazila chairman dug out land near the cable station and cut off some portions of optical fibre cables of the second submarine cable (SEA-ME-WE-5) in Patuakhali," said Mashiur Rahman.
Meanwhile, police have arrested the land owner and the excavator operator following a First Information Report filed by the BSCCL.
Bangladesh's first submarine cable was added to the "C-M-We-4" in 2005. And in September 2016, the second submarine cable was connected to the C-MI-5 submarine cable through the landing station at Kalapara in Patuakhali.
Through this station, Bangladesh gets 1,500 gigabits of internet per second from the submarine cable of the Southeast Asia-Middle East-Western Europe International Consortium.
Bangladesh is now connected to the World Wide Web through six alternative means (International Terrestrial Cable), in addition to the submarine cable.
According to internet service providers, the country currently uses about 1,700Gbps of bandwidth.
