Internet Service Providers Association of Bangladesh and Cable Operators Association of Bangladesh on Saturday suspended their scheduled three-hour service disruption programme.
At a webinar, ISPAB president MA Hakim came up with the declaration after post and telecommunications minister Mustafa Jabbar and state minister for ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak had asked them to wait until the prime minister’s intervention to resolve the crisis.
On September 1, Dhaka South City Corporation started a drive for cutting overhead cables.
On October 12, ISPAB and COAB at a press conference warned that they would carry out symbolic three-hour internet and television blackouts every day from October 18 if their demands were not addressed by October 17 while DSCC continued their drive.
ISPAB and COAB estimated that cables worth more than Tk 20 crore was demolished during the DSCC drives in the past 44 days.
DSCC officials said that for the past nine years they had repeatedly asked the cable operators to remove their overhead cables but they did not pay any heed on their call. Finally they launched the drive to remove the cables by conducting mobile courts.
COAB president SM Anower Parvez said that BTRC gave underground line setting licence to the Nationwide Telecommunication Transmission Network operators who were yet to complete their lines.
Defending the statement, the NTTN operators said that they already had installed underground lines under all main roads but the cable operators had not shifted their lines.
