Local internet users are likely to face disruption until at least the end of May, as fixing a damaged undersea cable is taking longer than expected due to new administrative complications in Indonesia, according to the authorities.
The cable damage is located in Indonesian territory.
Obtaining the necessary administrative permissions from the Indonesian authorities is taking longer than anticipated, Saidur Rahman, general manager of Bangladesh Submarine Cables PLC, told The Financial Express.
"It will take at least one month, until the end of May, to fix the cable," he said.
Local internet users have been facing disruption since Friday night, when the country's second submarine cable, SEA-ME-WE 5, the largest provider of international bandwidth, was damaged.
The damage to the cable has reduced Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company's capacity to one-third, according to Mirza Kamal Ahmed, managing director (acting) of the submarine cables company.
Mr Ahmed earlier said the repair might take around a week, as the SEA-ME-WE 5 cable was damaged in a location between Singapore and Indonesia.
He said a special ship is required to repair the undersea cable, and the company and the other consortium members have agreed to hire one.
"Some 17 countries have been affected by the damage to the cable," he added.
Now the submarine cable company manager Saidur Rahman said they are working to restore full capacity by transferring bandwidth to the country's first submarine cable SEA-ME-WE 4.
"The first cable is capable of carrying full bandwidth. The company using the cable will likely incur additional charges, which are still being calculated. We are also weighing other options," he said.
Mr Rahman said transferring bandwidth to SEA-ME-WE 4 is taking time because it will have to be done by the companies using the cable.
Bangladesh's internet bandwidth mainly comes through two deep-sea submarine cables. The first cable, SEA-ME-WE-4, is located at Cox's Bazar, while the second, SEA-ME-WE-5, is located at Kuakata.
In a previous statement, the submarine cable company said the second cable broke around 440 kilometres off the western coast of Singapore around midnight on Saturday.
Bangladesh's current international bandwidth usage is around 5,200 gigabits per second (Gbps).
More than half of it -- about 2,700 Gbps -- comes through international terrestrial cable (ITC) licence holders that import bandwidth from India across land borders.
The South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe 5 (SEA-ME-WE 5) submarine cable installed in Kuakata supplies 1,700GBPS.
Originally providing approximately 800 Gbps, the SEA-ME-WE 4 cable has recently undergone upgrades, now capable of supplying 3,800 Gbps.
Furthermore, Bangladesh is poised to receive 13,200 Gbps from a third submarine cable, SEA-ME-WE 6, by 2025.
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