Internet services resume after 12 hours of disruption

Internet services across the country resumed today after 12 hours of disruption due to damage done by an excavator to the country's second submarine cable line yesterday.

Internet services were restored around 12:17am today after repairing the damaged parts at Kuakata submarine cable landing station in Patuakhali district, said Moshiur Rahman, Managing Director of Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Limited (BSCCL).

"We were able to fully repair the submarine cable line around 12:00am and resumed operation around 12:17am," our Patuakhali correspondent reports quoting the BSCCL MD.

The underground cable line was damaged at Alipur under Kalapara upazila in the district around yesterday noon when some local workers were operating an excavator.

Workers pulled out 25 feet of cable line with the excavator from five feet below the surface, claimed Deputy General Manager of BSCCL, Md Tariqul Islam.

Harun-or- Rashid, security officer of the submarine landing station in Kuakata, filed a case accusing five with Mohipur Police Station in this regard last night.

Meanwhile, police arrested two of the accused -- Md Hossen Molla (40) and Abul Hossain (35) -- from Alipur area today, said Md Monir Hossain, officer-in-charge of the police station.

"We are trying our best to arrest the other accused in the case," said the OC.

The cable line provides nearly 40 percent of the total bandwidth used in the country. Due to the damage, consumers had been experiencing slow internet service.

The 20,000-kilometre cable system connects 19 countries from Singapore to France