Internet shutdowns for 25 days cost Bangladesh $70mn: report

Bangladesh lost an estimated $70mn due to 25 days of various degrees of Internet shutdowns from July 2015 to June 2016, a report prepared by the US-based Brookings Institution said.Internet shutdowns cost countries around the world $2.4bn in GDP in one year, said the study conducted by the leading US think-tank while examining the economic impact of cyber restrictions globally. The Bangladesh figures referred to in this research understandably took into account the 22-day ban the government imposed on popular social media website and instant messaging applications like Facebook, Viber and Whatsapp from November 18 to December 10 last year.Three days after lifting of the ban on those platforms, the government, on December 13, again blocked three other similar platforms Twitter, Skype and Imo for three days.The Brookings Institution research, however, put the total cost of such social media blackouts in Bangladesh to a total $69,178,309, meaning that the country lost around $2.76mn each day during that period due to partial internet shutdowns.“Such findings show the importance of Internet as the backbone of an economy,” said ICT specialist Mustafa Jabbar. “Blocking the Internet fully or partially for a long period of time can hardly be a solution to security concerns,” he added.He noted that there are around 5,000 Facebook Pages coming from Bangladesh which are used for online commerce.“These Facebook pages are important source for the development of small and medium entrepreneurs,” Jabbar noted.During the social media blackouts last year, it was reported that the country’s mobile operators were losing around 15mn taka each day as their revenue earnings from data services dropped by almost 30%.At the same time, as per the figures of the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, the total number of mobile Internet users in the country dropped from 52.3mn in October 2015 to 863,000 in November.As recently as August this year, the BTRC conducted a brief Internet and telecommunications shutdown drill in certain parts of the capital ‘to tackle any emergency situation’.Terming it as a continuous process, the telecom regulator said such exercise may take place in near future. Among the 19 countries which were studied as part of the Brookings research, India accounted for the highest loss resulting from Internet shutdowns. The South Asian giant lost $968.08mn in terms of GDP during 2015-16 through various degrees of internet disruptions. Pakistan, another South Asian country in that list, is just inches ahead of Bangladesh in the survey as it lost around $69.76mn through Internet shutdowns.The Brookings research noted that it did not take into account various factors like lost tax revenues associated with blocked digital access, impact on workers’ productivity, barriers to business expansion connected with these shutdowns or the loss of investor, consumer and business confidence resulting from such disruptions. As such, the figures presented in the study are conservative estimates that might underestimate the actual economic damage, said the research. The Brookings study noted that most of the shutdowns documented in the study were in the developing world. “If there were a temporary shutdown of the Internet in a developed economy, the economic damage would be enormous,” it said. “Every year, more and more consumers and businesses are engaged in e-commerce and online transactions”, the study said, adding, “Internet disruptions slow growth, cost governments tax revenue, weaken innovation, and undermine consumer and business confidence in a country’s economy”. “As Internet-powered businesses and transactions continue to grow to represent an increasingly significant portion of global economic activity, the damage from connectivity disruptions will become ever more severe,” the research paper noted.