Bangladesh broadband could be restored today

Full internet services to Bangladesh may be restored today, after nearly a week of disrupted connectivity resulting from a cable break.

 

A representative from state-owned operator BTCL told Sri Lanka's Daily Star newspaper that problems with cut off or sluggish connections should be solved today.

 

Broadband connections for millions of Bangladeshis were disrupted after a cable break on the SEA-ME-WE 4 cable on Wednesday, AFP reported last week.

 

The outage has affected almost all of Bangladesh's 7 million broadband users, according to the ISP Association of Bangledesh.

 

SEA-ME-WE 4 is the only subsea cable running into Bangladesh. But the cable damage reportedly only affected the eastern route into the country, forcing the western route to take up the slack.

 

The damage occurred around 60km off the coast of Singapore. While this section of the cable also connects to India, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, these nations were able to route traffic to alternate routes, BBC News said. 

 

Bangladesh plans to secure an alternate route on the 100Mbps SEA-ME-WE 5 cable, scheduled to go live in 2014.