Many Grameenphone users yesterday faced disruption in using internet and making calls for over 30 minutes due to "technical problems".

Mobile phone users from different parts of the country reported not being able to access Grameenphone's network after around 4.45pm.

Facebook was inundated with complaints from users, who were unable to make calls using their Grameenphone connections.

Later in a statement issued at 5.26pm, the operator said it had restored the network.

"Due to technical problems, some of our customers may have faced difficulties in using voice and data services for some time, which has already been restored by our network team. We apologise for the temporary inconvenience," said Sharfuddin Ahmed Chowdhury, head of communications at Grameenphone.

However, the company did not provide details on the "technical problems" nor shared the specific extent of the outage.

This is the third time in less than one and a half years that users experienced such an outage in the network of the country's top mobile phone operator, which has over eight crore customers or 43.52 percent of the total number of mobile subscribers.

Many vital government offices rely on Grameenphone using it as their official mobile network communication channel.

"We are observing the situation and will look into it," Md Mohiuddin Ahmed, chairman of Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, told The Daily Star yesterday.

In September last year, mobile phone users in different parts of the country complained about not getting access to Grameenphone's network for over half an hour due to a "technical glitch".

In February last year, Grameenphone customers from different parts of Bangladesh said they were unable to call other numbers in the same network.

 That time, an official told The Daily Star that the disruption took place because of damages in fibre-optic cables at "three different locations" in the northern regions of the country. The outage had lasted for around 2 hours.