Internet submarine cable maintenance work comes to an end; service resumed

The i2i cable network, a 3,100-kilometre submarine cable connecting Bangladesh's international internet gateway (IIG) operators with Singapore, resumed service since this evening.

"The upgrading activities in the Seabone cable from Chennai to Singapore which started on November 2, ended at 7:20pm, today," Ahmed Junayed, secretary general, International Internet Getaway Association, Bangladesh (IIGAB) told The Daily Star.

Bharti Airtel Ltd carried out the maintenance work.

Before the maintenance had started, there were fears of traffic interruption in internet usage in some parts of Bangladesh. Industry experts worried that internet users may face reduced speeds in some areas for five days due to the work.

But due to precautionary steps and alternative arrangements taken by some major IIG operators, latency and congestion levels were at a minimum level, said Ahmed Junayed.

The South East Asia–Middle East–Western Europe 4 (SEA-ME-WE 4) is an approximately 18,800 km submarine cable connecting Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Italy, Tunisia, Algeria and France.

"The SEA-ME-WE 4 is up. There is no maintenance on it. Only those IIGs that are using the SEA-ME-WE 4 from Cox's Bazar to Chennai and are then connected to the I2I to reach Singapore could have been affected," said an industry insider.