Mobile phone users in Bangladesh may have to wait some more days to access popular Internet calling and messaging services Viber and Tango.
Assistant Director (media) Jakir Hossain Khan of Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BRTC) has said the services may be kept blocked for a couple of days.
Officials of several mobile phone operators said they have received verbal notice from BTRC that the two free voice and messaging services to be blocked until further announcement.
The government kept the services blocked since early Saturday on security grounds.
Initially, the service was blocked till 6pm on Sunday. Later, it was extended twice till 12pm on Monday.
At the same time, the government also kept third generation (3G) mobile data services suspended for 11 hours on Sunday out of the same concern, sources from several mobile operators said.
Sources said the BTRC has recently got a letter from a high profile intelligence agency which warned that militants are using different modern services with the help of 3G.
“Terrorist groups, militants and anti-state elements are carrying out terror and subversive activities using the facilities of communication devices such as mobile phones and Internet technologies such as Viber, Skype, Tango and WhatsApp,” the letter reads.
The government kept popular video-sharing website YouTube blocked from September 2012 to June 2013 following the emergence of an anti-Islam clip on the cyber surface.
In 2013, the government tried to put in place a monitoring system for popular social media platforms Facebook, Whatsapp, Twitter and Linkedin but failed.
On Saturday night, BTRC sent an e-mail to the six mobile phone, three wi-max, all International Gateway (IGW) and International Internet Gateways (IIG) operators in the county requesting them to block the two services.