Bangladesh restores mobile internet services after 10-day blackout due to protests

Mobile internet services in Bangladesh were reinstated on Sunday, marking the end of a 10-day restriction imposed by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina government. The shutdown was initially enacted to curb the spread of misinformation amid widespread student protests against quota reforms.

According to the Dhaka Tribune, Zunaid Ahmed Palak, the Minister of State for Information and Communication Technology (ICT), announced that all users in the country would receive 5GB of internet data for free over a three-day period as a gesture of goodwill.

The government had taken the drastic step of shutting down mobile internet services on July 18 in response to escalating violence across the nation. Minister Palak explained to The Daily Star that this decision was driven by the need to address the ongoing crisis and to prevent the dissemination of fake news on social media platforms.

Also read: Did Manipur CM meet PM Modi one-on-one to discuss crisis? asks Congress leader

During the protests, the Department of Disaster Management building was set ablaze. This building was located next to a critical data center, leading the Internet Service Providers Association of Bangladesh (ISPAB) to warn that the fire could disrupt 30-40 percent of the country's bandwidth supply.

Broadband internet services were disrupted within an hour of the fire, resulting in a nationwide disconnection from both broadband and mobile internet from July 18 to July 23. While broadband services were gradually restored, mobile internet remained suspended until Sunday.

Palak also mentioned that the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) had reached out to officials from major social media platforms, including Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube, in an effort to manage the situation and mitigate the impact of fake news.