Broadband internet connection was partially restored in Dhaka city at about 9:00pm on Tuesday, five days after the government had shut down the internet connection across Bangladesh on July 18 amid countrywide quota reform protests.
Earlier, the government announced that it would restore the broadband internet connection on a priority basis by evening on the day.
There was, however, no clear indication of when the mobile internet connection would be restored.
State minister for posts, telecommunications and information technology Zunaid Ahmed Palak, while talking to a television channel on Tuesday said, 鈥榃e will restore the broadband internet connection by evening on Tuesday on an experimental basis.鈥�
According to the state minister, no decision has been made to restore social media services, including Facebook and YouTube.
The prolonged internet blackout for five days caused suffering to people amid countrywide protests and demonstrations against the killing of students during the movement for quota reforms in government jobs.
People did not have access to services, including app-based mobile financial services, internet-banking, ATM booth services, making it difficult for them to bear their daily expenses.
Besides, people were unable to get services of e-commerce platforms, digital utility payment, e-ticketing and online media for news updates of the country鈥檚 ongoing volatile situation.
Applying for passports and visas online was not possible either, causing acute suffering to those with urgent needs of these documents.
The government shut down the internet connection across the country on July 18 amid countrywide quota reform protests.
People across the country reported that they could not access online services since about 9:00pm on the day.
The government claimed that the internet services were 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, however, said that no such incident took place.
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 the ISPAB.
Various financial sectors, including freelancing and the information technology, are also facing severe crisis of losing credibility to foreign clients, as the internet services were suspended without prior notice, and workers and owners in these two sectors could not inform their clients of their unavailability beforehand.
Specialists said that the government was facing financial losses everyday due to the internet blackout as freelancers and information technology companies were unable to work.
The internet disruption also heavily affected the healthcare sector with physicians finding themselves in reduced capacity in giving treatment and other related services.
Many prepaid meter users remained without electricity since they ran out of their balance and could not pay the utility bills through digital payment.