During a flood response visit to a coastal district some years ago, I watched two workers plough through knee-deep water with a diesel generator on their shoulders. Grid power was out, batteries were dead, and no vehicle could reach the mobile tower site.
Those men, carrying heavy iron through the flood, were the only thing keeping tens of thousands of people connected. That image remains a sharper metaphor for our telecom power problem than any planning document.
This isn't an isolated incident, but the reality of mobile network operations across large parts of Bangladesh.
It has become an acute crisis as of April 2026 when the Association of Mobile Telecom Operators of Bangladesh (AMTOB) warned the BTRC of an imminent nationwide telecommunications blackout, citing data that exposes how fragile the energy foundation of our digital economy has always been.
The stakes are high when such a major systemic weakness is uncovered. AMTOB has cautioned that a data center failure would simultaneously sever mobile financial services, banking, e-commerce, emergency response, and digital governance.
As the Bangladesh TowerCo Association's interim president put it, "telecommunications is the first domino in the digital economy." When it falls, nothing else stands.
From grid to generator
Bangladesh's mobile operators burn nearly 100,000 litres of fuel daily to keep networks alive, approximately 52,000 litres of diesel, and 20,000 litres of octane for base transceiver stations, plus over 27,000 litres for data centers consuming 500 to 600 litres per hour each.
In rural areas, load-shedding runs eight to ten hours daily, far exceeding the four to six hours standard battery systems are designed to sustain.
Once batteries drain, the tower goes offline.
Only about 25% of tower sites have permanent generators; the rest rely on portable units or batteries alone. When power outages outlast the battery backup, what the sector calls 'portable generator deployment' is actually a story of grueling manual labour and improvisation.
It is a deep human cost hidden within a service millions take for granted.
The economics of backup power
The persistent reliance on diesel is not irrational on the part of network or towerco operators; it is a response to a system where alternatives don't yet offer return on investment under current conditions.
While extended battery backup is the obvious choice, lithium-ion systems capable of lasting over six hours require massive capital.
In areas where load-shedding is unpredictable, sizing these systems is a planning challenge: Overspending on batteries can quickly make a site economically unviable.
The economics of diesel generators are more predictable but unsustainable. Fuel costs account for over 80% of energy costs at off-grid sites, and 95% of petroleum imported, the cost exposure is large and structurally vulnerable.
The April 2026 fuel shortage, linked to Middle East tensions, has turned this fragility into an emergency, with local supplies running dry and inter-district fuel transport facing law enforcement barriers.
While running data centres on diesel is no longer commercially sustainable, a total network outage would be a social and economic catastrophe.
Beyond the generators
The problem Bangladesh faces is not unique, and the solutions available are not experimental.
India’s telecom sector offers the most directly applicable reference point. Indus Towers, the country’s largest tower company with over 250,000 sites, has procured 180 megawatts of captive solar energy through partnerships with renewable energy providers, reducing its annual carbon emissions by nearly 150,000 tons and achieving return on investment within four to six years through dramatically reduced fuel expenditure.
Solar-battery hybrid systems now provide eight to 12 hours of backup at Indian sites -- double the standard in Bangladesh while minimizing generator dependency to genuine emergencies.
Closer to home, research conducted for Bangladesh tower sites specifically confirms the financial viability of solar-PV hybrid systems for off-grid and poor-grid locations.
HOMER-based modelling studies show that sites in areas like Chittagong and Rangpur regions that receive strong solar irradiance and face chronic grid instability hybrid solar-battery-diesel deliver significantly lower levelized costs of electricity than pure diesel alternatives, particularly as fuel prices rise.
A 2026 pilot study integrating second-life electric vehicle batteries with rooftop solar panels at a Rangpur tower site demonstrated robust technical feasibility and confirmed cost reductions against conventional backup configurations.
The leading towerCo, EDOTCO has already deployed solar solutions at approximately 1,800 tower sites generating 450 MWh annually.
A framework for change
The government, the regulator, and the power utilities must jointly recognize that telecom network infrastructure is critical national infrastructure in the same category as power substations, water treatment facilities, and gas distribution networks.
This designation should come with concrete obligations: Exemption from load-shedding schedules for data centres and switching hubs; priority grid connection processing for new tower sites in underserved areas; and direct, unimpeded fuel allocation channels for declared telecom emergencies.
Beyond the immediate crisis, national power planning must incorporate telecom resilience as a design parameter. The simplest, lowest-cost fix is outage scheduling transparency: If utilities provide reliable load-shedding windows, mobile or towerco operators can pre-position fuel and equipment instead of scrambling reactively.
Furthermore, utilities should map the circuits serving BTS sites and prioritize them for restoration following planned or unplanned outages. This costs nothing beyond a policy decision and a clear directive.
At the local level, a new governance model could transform rural logistics. By offering interest-free loans, the government could empower local entrepreneurs or cooperatives to maintain portable generators and fuel near tower sites.
They would become first responders, restoring connectivity in minutes rather than waiting hours for distant technicians. This shifts connectivity from an outside service to a local economic driver, replacing a human ordeal with a tangible income opportunity for the community.
This model solves the ROI problem that makes permanent generators unviable across Bangladesh’s 46,000 tower sites. With low tenancy and some of the region's lowest revenue per user, towercos can’t justify the capital costs of fixed equipment.
By transferring ownership to a government-backed local asset, this community approach keeps operators viable without forcing them to choose between abandoning rural coverage or absorbing unrecoverable losses.
In the long-term, Bangladesh must restart its renewable energy pipeline with telecom as a priority. A mandated solar-hybrid program for new rural towers would cut diesel dependency and boost uptime.
To make this feasible, the state should offer tax incentives on solar imports, accelerated depreciation on hybrid energy investments, and temporary revenue-sharing exemptions from BTRC for chronically outage-affected sites.
Such relief acknowledges that operators cannot carry the double burden of building infrastructure while subsidizing a fragile power supply. Investing in telecom energy isn't just a sector fix, it’s an investment in the entire digital economy.
The ground beneath our connectivity
The workers splashing through floodwater were solving a problem that should never have been theirs to carry. The physical ordeal they endured was the direct consequence of a planning failure that reduced network resilience to manual labour.
Today, with 185 million subscribers facing a nationwide fuel emergency, we have reached the breaking point. Bangladesh cannot power a digital economy on diesel power and human endurance alone.
Connectivity is a lifeline, not an afterthought; it is time we treated the energy that powers it with the same urgency as the lights we refuse to let go dark.
Dr Sabbir Ahmad is an engineering and corporate leader with extensive global experience in digital connectivity, energy infrastructure, and sustainable development. Email: [email protected].
