A complete internet outage – both broadband and mobile data – for over a day has led to an unprecedented situation across the county, hampering necessary services like mobile transactions and access to verified information amid the on-going students’ protests.

State Minister Zunaid Ahmed Palak on Thursday hinted that the government suspended internet on mobile network to “combat anti-state propaganda”.

Meanwhile, internet service providers claimed that the broadband services cannot be restored due to a fire at Khwaja Tower in the capital’s Mohakhali area, which houses several private internet exchanges.

“Due the fire at an adjacent building, cables of some internet exchanges were damaged severely. We are trying to repair the cables. The workers are affected by the protesters,” Emdadul Haque, president of Internet Service Providers Association of Bangladesh (ISPAB), told the Daily Sun on Friday.

The ISPAB leader hinted that the broadband internet connections can be restored by tonight.

People’s sufferings mounted over Thursday as customers could not avail mobile applications of banking and mobile financial services due to internet disruption.

The payment gateways tried to maintain connectivity using 2G (second generation) mobile networks, said sources.

“Local POS transaction is running over 2G network of telecom operator, sometimes the service fluctuates from the network side. The issuing and acquiring on payment gateway are down. SMS service and cross border transaction remain stable,” Syed Mahbubur Rahman, former chairman at Association of Bankers, Bangladesh (ABB), told the Daily Sun on Friday.

People who usually surf social media and online news services to get news updates felt a discomfort due to remaining offline. The service sector depended on internet also suffered significant losses for the internet blackout.

Rights activists in the telecom sector said the internet blackout is pre-planned and the fire incident is a backdrop to narrate the story of outage.

Mohiuddin Ahmed, president of the Bangladesh Mobile Phone Consumers’ Association (BMPCA), said the government could suspend internet connections for the sake of stability by issuing an appropriate notice.

“The building fire is not responsible for the internet blackout. It is pre-planned to curb the mass connectivity. The authority is not only violating the telecom acts but also the human right of remaining connected. Tech-enabled ecommerce and other businesses of internet economy are also affected severely due to the blackout,” Mohiuddin Ahmed told the Daily Sun.

Fahim Mashroor, former president of Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS), said the internet blackout has halted the total tech industry including ecommerce, outsourcing, freelancing, and payment service providers.

“The situation leads to a disruption in tech service industry as most of their files are stored in online cloud servers. The software companies cannot serve local and foreign customers due to the internet blackout,” Mashroor told the Daily Sun.

The protesters on Thursday staged a demonstration in front of Grameenphone head office. They agitated for a couple of hours in front of GP House, demanding that the telecom operator turn on internet data within a short time.

“Considering the ongoing situation in the country, the government has temporarily stopped the mobile internet service in the country. We are dependent on the authorities to restart the internet service. We are in constant communication with the authorities in this regard,” said a Grameenphone spokesperson.

Robi Axiata in a text statement on Friday informed people that the company is sincere about keeping the internet and all other services running all times.

“We are in constant contact with the authorities regarding the matter,” said the notice.

The Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Communication (BTRC) on Friday said the authority was trying to restore the internet connections by that night.