Khawaja Tower Fire: 90pc internet data traffic to be restored by today
The internet service providers are hopeful that by today they will be able to restore almost all data traffic that got disrupted after the fire at Khawaja Tower on Thursday.
"We are now moving our racks and router switches to a nearby data centre in Mohakhali," said Md Emdadul Hoque, president of the Internet Service Providers Association of Bangladesh (ISPAB) yesterday.
According to ISPAB, 70 percent of broadband connection has been restored.
The blaze affected the operations of several international internet gateway (IIG) service providers, data centres and interconnection exchanges (ICXs) that were housed in the tower.
As a consequence, internet and voice connections across the country were severely hampered, with many users unable to access online services or make calls.
Mobile internet and voice connection disruptions were especially noticeable as these also draw bandwidth from the IIGs.
However, the damage is less severe than they thought, Hoque said.
Because of the Khawaja tower fire, two of the data centres -- Dhakacolo on the 10th floor and NRB Telecom on the 11th floor -- were damaged.
Some equipment in NRB got burnt while Dhakacolo remained largely undamaged.
However, some cables were damaged and the electricity cut-off for the fire led to service disruption.
Around 600-700 internet service providers in the capital and its surroundings have shared resources and helped one another to provide internet.
Meanwhile, Robi and Banglalink officials said they have restored their network fully.
Shahed Alam, head of regulatory affairs at Robi, said connection between Robi and Banglalink has been restored.
Contacted, Hossain Sadat, spokesperson for Grameenphone, said, "We have a transmission hub there. At this moment, our topmost priority is the restoration of services … By now, most of our services have been restored, and we are working to restore the rest to the best of our ability."
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