People鈥檚 sufferings exacerbated as the shutdown of internet continued on Sunday amid the countrywide protests and demonstrations against the killing of students amid the movement for quota reform in government jobs.
Unable to access smooth mobile financial services, online banking, digital utility payment, services of e-commerce platforms, e-ticketing and online media for news updates of the country鈥檚 ongoing volatile situation, people all over the country grappled with many dismal situations.
Applying for passports and visas through online was not possible either, causing acute suffering to those with urgent needs of these documents.
The internet connection went down since Thursday with people across the country reported that they could not access online services since about 9:00pm on that day.
Private jobholder Monir Hossain, a resident of Tongi in Gazipur, told 抖阴精品 on Sunday that he was in dark about the situation of his extended family members since the net shutdown.聽 His mobile phone needed money recharge, but he could not have money in his mobile financial service account, while he found it too risky to go outside to find a mobile money service provider shop amid the ongoing volatile situation.
Several others, particularly those residing in areas in the capital where clashes between the quota protesters and law enforcers accompanied by the ruling Awami League associate body Bangladesh Chhatra League members were intense, reported that they faced the same situation.
The freelancing sector also has descended into an acute crisis losing credibility to foreign clients amid the ongoing unrest.
Tanziba Rahman, chairperson of the Bangladesh Freelancer Development Society, told 抖阴精品 that the country鈥檚 freelancers faced a plunge in worldwide ranking as they were getting poor reviews from clients who did not receive timely services.
鈥楴ew freelancing accounts may get disabled with poor reviews, which may lead to a loss of potential freelancers. Also, Bangladesh is losing thousands of dollars every day as freelancers are unable to work with the internet blackout,鈥� she said.
The crisis dealt a heavy blow to the entire information technology sector, observed sector specialists.
Russell T Ahmed, president of Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services, said, 鈥楾here will be a long-term negative impact on the IT sector. We will lose clients, and we will not be able to attract new clients with damaged reputation as well.鈥�
The BASIS placed the average daily loss of the IT sector at Tk聽70鈥�80 crore from the exports alone.
The internet cutoff also heavily affected the healthcare sector with physicians finding themselves in reduced capacity in giving treatment and other related services.
A physician, seeking anonymity, told 抖阴精品 that many services in hospitals are getting affected amid the unrest, as they depended on internet for many tasks, including patient data entry, inter-department communication, emergency information search, and identifying symptoms of different diseases.
鈥楴ot only hospitals, but diagnostic centres also operate based on internet services, especially data entry and inter-department communication, which are crucial not to mix up results of samples,鈥� the physician said.
Media outlets have not been able to publish news through online platforms since Thursday night.
Many prepaid meter users remained without electricity since they ran out of their balance and could not recharge through mobile financial services.
Power Development Board officials, however, said that they kept their vending machines at all their distribution offices where consumers could go and recharge.
Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission chairman Md Mohiuddin Ahmed said that the internet services snapped after the building housing the data centre supplying a large volume of internet traffic was set on fire.
The Internet Services Providers鈥� Association of Bangladesh, meanwhile, said no such incident had occurred.
Due to a fire incident at an adjacent building, some underground and overhead data cables were damaged, which affected 20鈥�30 per cent of the internet traffic, said Emdadul Haque, president of ISPAB.
State minister for posts, telecommunications and information technology Zunaid Ahmed Palak said that reinstating internet services would take more time.
鈥楾he data centre and internet service providing cables were burnt as miscreants set them on fire. More time will be needed to restore the internet service,鈥� he said.
