Telecom chaos as core cable cut turns landlines dead in Bangladesh

Landline phone services in Bangladesh have resumed ‘partially’ after a daylong disruption due to a ‘core cable’ cut in Dhaka during city corporation’s repair work, affecting about 900,000 connections, including those of Fire Service.

Mahfuz Uddin Ahmad, Managing Director of Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Ltd or BTCL, told bdnews24.com on Friday evening that they ‘partially’ repaired the core cable.

“Telecommunications in some areas have normalised,” he said.    

The MD also said it would take them beyond midnight to fully repair the cable.

The core cable snapped during the repairs on Dilu Road in Moghbazar on Thursday night, said BTCL spokesman Mir Mohammad Morshed.

“We started repairing the cable in the morning. We hope things will get normal later in the day.”

Dilu Road, where the core cable was cut.

Users complained of phones going dead and interrupted calls from one area to another. But some landlines in the same neighbourhood are working fine.

BTCL’s Mahfuz complained that the city corporation did not take enough precautions despite letters served by the state-owned telecom company.

“The chaos spread across the country,” he said earlier in the afternoon.

“The core cable is the heart of all landlines. So it has affected all sub-cables,” said one of the officials.

Brigadier General Ali Ahmed Khan, Director General of Fire Service and Civil Defence, said their control room numbers went out of order early on Friday.

No-one was being able to report fire incidents. People can reach the fire service control room on 01730336699 and 01713038182, said Duty Officer Mahfuz Ripon in the morning.

In the evening, Duty Officer Nazma Aktar said the phones became partially operational around 5:30pm.

People cannot reach them using mobile phones, she said and added there were also problems in calls made from landlines.

The landlines used by the bdnews24.com newsroom have been facing the same problems since morning. Similar reports have emerged from Lalbagh, Green Road, Malibagh and Mirpur.

A BTRC official said they were supervising the BTCL activities. “The national emergency services are facing problems indeed. BTCL is trying to finish the repair quickly.”