After an outage of almost 18 hours, mobile internet services are back in Bangladesh on which was blocked in an effort to stop rumours being fanned across the social media.
A high-level official of mobile phone operator confirmed that internet was switched after 6pm on Sunday (Dec 30) evening, some two hours after voting to the 11th parliamentary election closed.
Operators received the directive from Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) around 6:15pm, the official told Bangla Tribune, asking not to be named.
Late on Saturday (Dec 29), the telecoms regulator asked operators to completely shut down mobile internet, hours after it blocked faster 3G and 4G services.
The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) said on Saturday that the move came to prevent rumours and propaganda surrounding the vote.
Mobile 3G and 4G data services were also shut down for 10 hours on Thursday (Dec 27) night and Friday (Dec 28) morning.
It resumed around 8:30 am on Friday only to be shut again on Saturday afternoon to a complete shutdown hours later on the eve of election.