Bangladesh Internet out due to cut undersea cable
updated 11:48 am EDT, Fri June 8, 2012
Cut cable disrupting Bangladesh-based outsource businesses
Internet users located in Bangladesh are suffering from major disruption to their service. An undersea cable running between France and Malaysia has been severed, causing slow connections for all users in the area, according to the BBC. Other countries in the region affected by the outage are routing traffic through other channels while repairs take place.
The incident took place 40 miles away from the coast of Singapore, and saw the submarine cable cut through unknown means. All traffic that would have gone through the east segment has been diverted to the west segment, with no backup cable available to take the network traffic. A new connection due in 2014 called SEA-ME-WE 5 is set to replace the current out-of-service connection, offering data speeds of 100Gbps when up and running.
Of the 165 million people living in Bangladesh, it is estimated that about five percent have access to broadband Internet, with the president of the Internet Service Providers' Association of Bangladesh Akhtaruzzaman Monju pointing out that outsourcing firms relying on Internet-based telephony have been disrupted by the issue.
