Staff Reporter :
Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission shut down the mobile internet service again on Sunday as per the instructions of the government.
The BTRC has announced that the 4G network will remain suspended until further notice. During this period, only 2G services will be available for making calls.
When contacted for further details, BTRC Chairman Mohiuddin Ahmed declined to comment, saying that he was in a meeting.
In a statement, Grameenphone said, ‘The authorities have shut down the mobile internet services. We are in continuous communications with the relevant authorities regarding this issue.
The latest move comes amid a new wave of violence as rival groups clashed in parts of Bangladesh. At least eight people were killed in the violence.
The authorities had earlier asked the operators to block access to social media platforms such as Facebook and Messenger just before the students’ nationwide prayer and march on Friday. Services were reopened around six hours later.
On July 31, the government unblocked social media platforms such as Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube as the authorities relaxed a curfew with longer daytime breaks.
Mobile internet services, used by 12.7 crore subscribers, were blocked from July 17 as the violence intensified.
A day later, broadband internet was blocked, which severely affected public life and a wide range of economic activities, including utility bill payments, online banking, international communications, clearance of goods from ports and digital commerce.
The government restored broadband internet on a limited scale on July 23.
Mobile internet was resumed on July 28 after more than 10 days of outage. Social media platforms Facebook, TikTok, WhatsApp and YouTube were resumed two days later.
In response of the clashes and conflicts that erupted centering the quota reform movement, mobile internet was turned off on 17 July night and the broadband internet was closed down on 18 July.
After five days broadband internet was restored on limited scale on 23 July. And, the mobile network reactivated after 10 days on 28 July.
However the Meta platforms including Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram were still closed. In addition to that, TikTok was kept closed as well. Meanwhile, YouTube was running on broadband connection but not on mobile data.
Social media including Facebook was reactivated in Bangladesh after 2:00 pm on 31 July. However the cache of the Meta platforms was turned off on mobile network after 12:15 pm on Friday, 2 August.
Telegram was also shut down on this network that day. It was reactivated after five and a half hours though.
