Mobile network disrupted in power outage: Telcos

Operators have blamed power outages in the aftermath of weather conditions for the disruption in mobile network across the country.

The power outage situation has become severe across Bangladesh due to recent weather conditions and is impacting the countrywide mobile network, Association of Mobile Telecom Operators of Bangladesh (AMTOB) said today.

In a release, they said that once the network sites (mobile towers) are down, it takes hours for power supply to restore, resulting in disrupted services.

On Saturday's storm, it was observed that nearly half of the 18,000 network sites in the country were left without commercial power, said AMTOB.

"By 7:00am on Sunday, around 10,000 sites were without power. However, the numbers improved to around 6,000 sites without commercial power by 10:00am," it said.

"After more than 12 hours since the storm, nearly 35 per cent of the total sites still have no commercial power, while nearly 15 per cent of total sites in the country have a complete power outage," it added in the press release.

Telcos are now is requesting authorities to take necessary measures to ease mobile subscribers' sufferings due to prolonged power outages.

"We have observed that the commercial power supply is switched off before a storm hits and it takes hours to be restored," said the mobile operators.

Though mobile operators have power backup systems in place, they are only able to keep network sites up for around eight hours and after that there is complete site outage in some areas, it adds.

Earlier on March 30, the operators also faced the same situation and at that time over 6,500 mobile network towers went offline across Bangladesh following the nor'wester that wreaked havoc in Dhaka.