Mobile phone and internet services were disrupted at different parts of the country yesterday due to the nationwide electricity outage.
Several hundred sites (base stations) of different mobile operators went out of network as their power backup could not run smoothly.
Country’s six mobile operators have around 23,000 sites and when this story was being filed around 10pm, more than 1,000 of those went out off network, sources said.
The WiMAX operators also face huge challenges to serve their subscribers.
Situation went worse after 8pm, users experienced huge call drops and network congestion as the operators failed to run services with alternative arrangements.
Association of Mobile Telecom Operators of Bangladesh (Amtob) termed the disruption “the biggest disaster” of the mobile telecommunication history of in the last 20 years.
“We are in a situation of national disaster. Everybody should understand it and the operators are trying to solve it with their best efforts,” TIM Nurul Kabir, secretary general of Amtob, told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday evening.
They informed the government and the regulator about the situation. “The government has also expressed concern about it.”
Around 15% of the sites of Robi went out of network by 7pm, said AKM Morshed, the chief technology officer. “We will be unable to manage the situation if the power outage continues for two or three more hours,” he said.
The disruption also created network conjugation, he added.
When the Dhaka Tribune was talking with him, the call dropped at least three times.
Market leader Grameenphone said around 100 of their sites went out of network as their backup system could not take the load for more than six hours.
“Further disruption in the national electricity grid may cause some network limitations on operators’ voice and data services in a few selected areas of the country,” Sayed Talat Kamal, head of external communications of Grameenphone, told the Dhaka Tribune.
Gias Uddin Ahmed, the acting managing director of Teletalk, said they were able to manage the network until 8pm, but expressed concern saying that they may not continue more with insufficient diesel generators.
Banglalink CTO Perihane Elhamy said they did not find any problem up to 8pm. He said they might face problems to tackle the situation if the outage continued for two or three more hours.
