Fire at Mohakhali building housing data centres, servers disrupts internet, mobile services

The ISP Association chief says 40-50 percent of ISPs of the country have been directly affected by the fire while the rest face partial disruption of services

A fire at Khawaja Tower in Dhaka’s Mohakhali has caused widespread disruption to internet connections across the country as the building houses data centres and servers of several firms.

Residents of some areas in Dhaka reported total internet blackout while some others were facing slow connections as internet service providers of Bangladesh warned of disruptions after the fire incident on Thursday afternoon.

The Fire Service and Civil Defence was yet to put out the flames at the 14-storey building on Bir Uttam AK Khandakar Road from Mohakhali’s Amtali to Gulshan more than four hours after the fire broke out.

At least one person has died after falling during a desperate try to escape the fire by using a cable.

The fire service rescued several of the people trapped inside. It is unclear if anyone else was still inside.

Emdadul Hoque, president of the ISPs Association of Bangladesh, said two data centres at Khawaja Tower are connected to 10-12 International Internet Gateways that serve several hundred ISPs.

“It can be said that 40-50 percent of ISPs of the country have been directly affected by the fire while the rest face partial disruption of services,” he said.

Mobile phone operators Grameenphone, Banglalink and Robi told their customers in notices that the fire may cause disruptions to voice call and internet services .

Saif Powertec has its offices and data centre on six floors of the building. The eighth and ninth floors house Earth Telecom and Race Online’s offices and server rooms on the eighth and ninth floors of the building. Race Online is a venture of Earth Telecom.

NRB Telecom, which provides services to mobile phone operators, has its data centre rented and run by Windstream Communications.

Mahbub Alam, owner of Windstream, said Grameenphone and many other companies have their data centres and servers in the building.

Almost all the IIGs and ISPs of the country are connected to these data centrs and servers, he said.

He thinks the fire will cause internet service disruptions across the country as the fire has heavily damaged the data centres and optical fibres in Khawaja Tower.

Internet service provider ADN Telecom said in a notice that most of their customers will face problems as the fire has snapped the backbone fibre cable of their nationwide telecom transmission network in the building.