Grameenphone network was knocked out for two hours. All hell broke loose

Millions of subscribers of Grameenphone or GP went through a wringer on Thursday after the nation’s biggest mobile network was hit by an unprecedented two-hour outage.

The telecom regulator described the blackout of signal and data connectivity as an “unusual” incident and “national emergency” respectively.

In a press briefing on Thursday afternoon, the senior executives of the joint venture public limited company said their network was disrupted when the fibre optic cables were severed near three government-sanctioned project sites simultaneously, which are-

- Dhaka-Gazipur highway near the Bus Rapid Transit project site,

- On the Elenga-Jamalpur highway near the four-lane highway project when a tractor was ripping cable poles off the ground.

- On Tangail to Sirajganj railway line. The cable was severed while railway vendors were working on the line.

GP’s Head of Network Services, AKM Al-Amin, who was present at the briefing, said the situation turned grave as all three severed cables are considered “backbone cables” of their network.

The outage hit Dhaka, Chattogram, and many other parts of the country shortly after 11:30am on Thursday, halting the voice and internet service.

The network came back on around 2pm, according to Khairul Bashar, Grameenphone’s head of communications, who briefed journalists.

Khairul, however, declined to make any assumption about whether the incident was a coordinated act of sabotage or not.

Yasir Azman, the CEO, in a video message uploaded on the company's social media pages, described the incident as “very unusual.”

“Severing of cables in three different locations simultaneously is a very unusual event, which we have never encountered in our 26-year history,” he said.

The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, meanwhile, had issued a notice instructing the telecom operator to take urgent action to restore its mobile network nationwide as soon as possible.

The regulator also sought proper explanations from the company about the network breakdown, describing the incident as a “national emergency”.

SUBSCRIBERS CLUELESS, SERVICES AFFECTED

Of the 180 million mobile SIM users in Bangladesh, about 79.3 million or 42 percent, are Grameenphone subscribers, according to data from the regulator.

Although neither the regulator nor the company is yet to confirm how many of the GP subscribers were affected by the outage, the torrent of reactions posted on social media was enough to gauge what the subscribers of the network were feeling during the outage,

“Somehow resisted the temptation of throwing the Grameen SIM to Buriganga,” wrote Mahmudul Hasan Pervez, a journalist, on his Facebook account.

“GP is gone,” wrote Kawsar Shakil on Facebook.

Kazi Mahmudur Rahman, a banker, told bdnews24.com that the outage severely impacted his work.

“Initially, I thought the issue was with my handset. I rebooted the phone a few times, hoping that would fix it. Later I found that the whole network is down. It was a complete mess,” he said.

Bobi Rani Das, a receptionist at a private clinic in Narsingdi, said their patients failed to reach the hotline of the clinic as it uses a GP mobile phone number as the clinic’s hotline.

“Our patients couldn’t reach us during the outage. Even I called a doctor for an emergency but failed to reach him,” she said.

MFSs HIT HARD, ATM BOOTHS DOWN

The subscribers of mobile financial services or MFS, who rely on the GP network, were one of the worst sufferers of the outage.

Several people tied to the industry categorically said they could not make a single transaction during the outage.

“My PDB [Power Development Board] approved system for topping up pre-paid electricity charges piggybacks on the Grameen network. I couldn’t make any transactions during the outage. My customers were miserable,” he said.

“Not only that, but I also couldn’t provide other services like transaction and mobile phone topping up during the outage.”

When contacted, Shamsuddin Haider Dalim, head of corporate communications for bKash, the pioneering mobile financial service in Bangladesh, told http://bdnews24.com that their customer care lines were ringing off the hook soon as the outage hit GP subscribers.

“The customers kept complaining that they were unable to make any transaction. We advised them that our services were working fine; the problem is elsewhere,” he said.

Businessman Wahed Uddin told http://bdnews24.com that he attempted to withdraw cash from three teller machines in Motijheel during the outage hours.

“All the teller machines’ network was down. The guards securing the machines said enough cash had been deposited on the machines, but due to the outage, none can withdraw,” he said.

SERVICES SPARED 

Some businesses and services, dependent on GP services, somehow survived the worst outage effect.

Md Rezaul Karim, general manager of Sonali Bank Local Office, said they had a back-up internet system placed in case of an outage, which kicked in as soon as the outage hit.

“The internet banking system was active throughout the outage. Our clients didn’t suffer much. The internal transaction system was active as well,” he said.

Trading on Dhaka Stock Exchange, Bangladesh’s premier bourse, was not affected due to the outage, confirmed its spokesperson Shafiqur Rahman.

[Senior Correspondents Obaidur Masum, Masum Billah and Staff Correspondent Sheikh Abu Taleb contributed to the article; writing in English by Adil Mahmood]