July 2024: five days without internet, from inside a Dhaka software house

Marta asked me some weeks ago to write this. Today is the anniversary, so I am trying. Sorry if it is long, actually it is the short version.

I work at a software house in Dhaka, around 40 developers, almost all our clients are in Denmark and Norway. In July 2024 the student movement started about the job quota, and it became much bigger than quota. I was on the streets some evenings after work. I will not write everything I saw. On the 16th we all watched the video of Abu Sayed in Rangpur standing with his arms open. After that nobody in our office could work properly anyway.

Then the internet went. Mobile data first. Then on the night of the 18th, broadband too. Total. Curfew after that. For about five days we had nothing: no email, no Slack, no client, no news except TV and rumours by phone call. Broadband came back slowly after that. Mobile data took more than a week more.

What it did to the work

• Our clients had no idea what happened. One of them thought we ghosted them. From their side, 40 people disappeared in one night without a message.
• Two of our developers were in a client's on-call rotation. The rotation just had a hole in it.
• One client paused the contract. Two others sent the kindest emails I have ever received in my career, after we came back.
• The thing is, the trust cost was bigger than the money cost. For months after, every new client asked "what is your plan if it happens again".

What we changed

• A continuity plan in the contract. Clients now know in advance: if Bangladesh goes dark, here is what happens.
• An emergency contact outside the country for every client, who can post a status update for us. One of our seniors' cousins in Copenhagen does it for free, we owe him many dinners.
• Runbooks and access so the client team can operate our services alone for a week.
• Starlink became legal here last year. Our office has one dish now, just in case. I hope it stays in its box.

Now

Two years later I am, how to say, optimistic and disillusioned at the same time. We had the election. I voted in something that felt like a real vote for the first time in my life, and I am already disappointed with every party, which maybe is what normal democracy feels like. Fine. I will take normal.

And to anyone, Indian or Bangladeshi or anyone, who wants to reduce what happened to a TV debate: please don't. People died. Students. Children. It was not a studio argument.

আমরা ভুলবো না।