The Internet regulator of Bangladesh (BRTC) has decided to abandon its plan to allow Bangladesh to be the transit point for the seven northeastern states of India. Surrounding this is a claim that has gone viral where users are claiming that the North East Region of India is facing Internet outages and disruptions.
Pak-based accounts have shared the claim, “India’s northeastern states are facing worst internet outage as Bangladesh continues to block broadband transit.”
Fact Check
On investigation, we found the claim to be false. There have been no reports in regard to any outage or non-functionality of Internet services in the North-East.
However, the proposal to use the Akhaura border in Tripura as a transit route for broadband connectivity via Bharti Airtel’s network was withdrawn by Bangladesh’s telecom regulator, BTRC. However, this has not led to any disruptions of the Internet in North East region of India.
Moreover, currently, the region is connected to Singapore through submarine cables in Chennai using India’s domestic fiber-optic network. It is known as MIST. MIST is an international submarine cable communication network, traversing the undersea to connect India with other Asian countries such as Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore. It is an 8,100 km-long undersea transnational fiber optic cable system connecting Mumbai to Singapore, via Chennai.
Conclusion
Thus, from the fact check, it is evident that the viral claim that India’s northeastern states are facing the worst internet outage due to Bangladesh blocking broadband transit is false. While #Bangladesh withdrew a proposal to use the Akhaura border in Tripura for broadband connectivity, this has not affected internet functionality in Northeast India.
DFRAC Analysis: False
