Internet users may face slow speed for six days

The subscribers to some Internet Service Providing companies are likely to face reduced internet speed for the next six days, starting from Monday, as the I2I circuit – a fibre optic cable that connects the country's international internet gateway operators with Singapore – is going through emergency maintenance.

Md Emdadul Hoque, secretary general of the Internet Service Providers Association of Bangladesh (Ispab), confirmed the matter to The Business Standard.

The emergency I2I circuit maintenance started on Monday at 12.30am and will continue until 31 October at 12:30am. During this time, most of the SMW-4 circuits will be down, read a press release.

During the maintenance period, users might face high latency, intermittent packet-loss and jitter in multiple destinations.

However, Ispab will shift users' traffic to other available paths to avoid such issues mentioned above.

The Ispab started maintenance work to avoid unplanned outages in the near future, read the statement.

Emdadul Hoque, secretary general of Ispab, said I2I circuit is connected with the submarine cable that has reached Singapore via Chennai in India as an alternative route.

"The submarine cable needs some maintenance, which is operated by Indian Airtel. Bangladeshi IIGs that are connected with that cable may face some slowdown," he said.

"There will be no problem for the rest of the ISPs who are connected with SEA-ME-WE-4 and 5 (South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe-4 & 5), operated by Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Limited (BSCCL), a state owned IIG company," he further added. 

Mashiur Rahman, managing director of BSCCL, also confirmed that there is no maintenance issue with their submarine cable.