BREAKING NEWS, Business
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Telecom Operators who fail to deactivate unregistered Subscriber Identification Module Cards will pay a fine of N200,000 for each flaw
| By Anayo Ezugwu | Aug 31, 2015 @ 01:00 GMT |
THE recent directive the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, gave to telecom service providers to deactivate all unregistered Subscriber Identification Module, SIM, cards does not mean total withdrawal of the cards from the systems of the network operators. Tony Ojobo, director, public affairs, NCC, clarified that those subscribers who registered their SIM cards properly would have them reactivated.
This clarification became necessary following the deluge of enquiries at the NCC some of which alluded to the impression that their SIM cards have been withdrawn permanently. According to him, the decision to deactivate the SIM cards came at the meeting the NCC had with the office of the National Security Adviser, NSA, the Department of State Service, DSS, and Telecom operators after which the operators were given one-week to deactivate those unregistered and improperly registered SIM cards.
The operators were specifically told that those subscribers whose lines were not registered and have not made any effort to register them should be communicated before deactivation. “So the deactivation of SIM cards is in line with the resolution reached at that meeting. Subscribers who failed to register properly will have their lines deactivated but those who comply will have them reactivated. Proper registration means that a subscriber’s facial pictures, biometrics/finger prints, valid means of identification, address, should be properly captured among others,” he said.
Ojobo said these are part of the security measures to check incessant cases of crimes with the use of mobile phones. “People hide under anonymity to commit crimes because their lines are not registered, but all that have to change as the network operators have been told what to do.”
The telecom regulatory body had issued a seven-day-ultimatum to telecom operators and network providers to deactivate all pre-registered SIM cards or face any sanctions. This ultimatum was issued as a result of the current security situation and unspeakable crimes of terrorists, kidnappers, robbers and the threat to the life of the citizens by criminals through the use of unregistered SIM cards of all networks.
“We resolved that henceforth, all registrations must conform to the data dictionary, technical specifications on finger prints and facial images and the business rule agreed by all stakeholders; all registration records must be validated before sending to the commission; thus eliminating all invalid records that does not conform to new registrations and indicate same in the monthly reports sent to commission. It was also resolved that operators would be held liable for cases of pre-registered SIMs.”
It was, however, revealed that while more than 120 million SIM cards have been registered and transmitted to the central database by the operators, about 45 percent of the total numbers of registered SIMs, as at September 2014, were deemed invalid. Less than 30 percent of the invalid records have been resubmitted for correction till date.
So far, the NCC has blocked 10.7 million mobile telephone lines in the last one week for improper registration. The regulatory body said on Tuesday, August 18, that at the completion of a strict monitoring of mobile operators in the country, it was likely to block 28.61 million more lines found to be defective, which would bring the total number of deactivated lines to 38.78 million.
According to Bashiru Idris, head of SIM registration project, NCC, the operators and their agents were expected to ensure proper biometric capturing of subscribers including the fingerprints and facial outlook, but they failed to do so in most cases.
According to Efosa Idehen, head of compliance and monitoring unit, NCC, the regulator has since the expiration of the ultimatum given to operators been visiting them to ensure compliance. The commission had in September 2014 discovered that from the SIM data the operators sent to the commission for harmonisation some were defective and had to be returned to the operators for proper and complete checks.
Idehen said: “18.6 million SIM data were sent back to MTN Nigeria; 10.46 million to Etisalat; 7.49 million to Airtel; and 2.23 million to Globacom. The huge figures are a sign that the operators are partially committed to the exercise; more so, the NCC monitoring exercise proved us right.”
Out of about 18.6 million SIM registration data found to be defective on MTN network, only about 1.6 million had been barred. “What MTN actually did was to put the affected subscribers on ‘Receive calls only’, which means the subscribers cannot put a call through to another network. With this, there was no compliance from MTN. During our visit to Airtel, the telecommunications service had fully barred 2.3 million lines from their networks. These are SIM data found to be incomplete. At Globacom, 3.5 million lines have been barred also from their network. Globacom gave assurance of 24 hours to deactivate other lines found to be defective on their networks. Etisalat has barred 3.3 million lines and promised that within 24 hours, others found to be challenging will be removed totally from the networks.”
The directive given to the operators was to block any line found to have incomplete registration, while they (operators) could later urge the affected subscribers to come and complete their registration. He, therefore, said that to check any excesses henceforth, operators would be required to send correct data for harmonisation to the regulator.
He said the NCC would sanction any operator going contrary to the stipulation of the SIM Card Registration Code, sections 19 to 21, with an errant operator paying N200,000 for each flaw.
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