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Tag: SIM registration

  • Victims of double sim registration

    Victims of double sim registration

    It was a rude shock early this morning, as early as 6:25am when our correspondent got this message from telecommunication giants, Airtel. It read:

    “Dear Customer, you have been barred for incomplete registration as directed by NCC. Kindly call 121 for reactivation.”

    For our Correspondent who thought this was a prank, played by unscrupulous elements tried to access the internet via his smartphone. However, it failed to connect. He tried to call some numbers; but to no avail. Instead, he was ordered to re- register his sim with Airtel. This is after completing his first sim registration with the telecommunication network where the sim was working alright, enabling our correspondent access the internet before this early morning stunner.

    This story doesn’t come without some background.

    “Last month, our correspondent in need of a new network for internet subscription bought an Airtel sim for the price of 50 naira. This occurred on old Akesan road, not too far across from the Igando Police Station, Lagos State. In fact the registration was done in front of a shop called Sunfax Communication slightly adjacent the Igando Police Station where several rows of stalls are erected.”

    There was a December Christmas bonaza and two Airtel operators who wore Airtel uniforms cajoled our correspondent to get a sim for 50 naira only. This came with free registration as a freebie for the Yuletide. This was where our correspondent bought the sim. The sim was promptly registered and our correspondent was told to recharge and make a call as soon as he got home.

    On getting home, our correspondent did as he was told, not knowing that he would not be able to get the full functions of the sim registeration. He was unable to place calls but was actually able to receive an incoming call. He dialled the customer care with this complaint and after receiving an ID of complaint labelled ANG20171218132032145; he thought the issues will be promptly attended.

    All he got in the end was a configuration message and permission to access the internet but was still not given the ability to place calls. His new sim gave him the ability to receive calls and browse the internet alone. No chance for outbound calls or text but he could recharge and after dialling the customer care for the second time with the same complaint, all he got was: “your compliant is currently treated.”

    Since the essence of buying the sim was for internet subscription, our correspondent continued to enjoy the Airtel sim not until today that he got the heart wrenching message and was unable to access the internet all day.

    This forced our correspondent to go down to the Airtel Office in Igando Market, very close to the BRT bus-stop. He was attended to by Abdulrasheed Faleye, an Airtel attendant who was willing to help.

    On getting to the Airtel office, our correspondent was approached by Abdulrasheed, who assumed our correspondent wanted to either buy or register a sim. He was seated outside with a colleague wearing the Airtel branded uniform and immediately stood up as our correspondent entered. Our correspondent who described his coming to the Airtel office as a complaint; due to the fact that his line was barred was met by a persistent and confident Abdulrasheed who refused to be turned down or shrugged aside.

    Abdulrasheed promptly agreed to help but our correspondent was initially bent on speaking to the head of the office. He was of the opinion that the matter will still be resolved by him. He ordered our correspondent to go in, saying: “She will still direct you back to me to help.”

    Hearing this, our correspondent relayed the whole matter leading to the ban placed on his line in the early hours of the day.

    Abdulrasheed who saw the instance as a scam,confided in our correspondent and stated that issues like these don’t seem new.

    “There are several people that come to us with your request all day. It is mostly on issues like these which are closely related to sim registration scams.”

    Our correspondent who wanted to know how these unscrupulous individuals could be identified questioned the Airtel attendant if they were loopholes in detecting sim fraudsters.

    “There is no way in knowing them. They all wear the branded Airtel shirts. They also carry tabs like these and input all your information including fingerprints too. Did they tell you our office is here and they we work on weekends?”

    Our correspondent responded in the affirmative and went further to tell Abdulrasheed that these fake airtel staff knew that the official Airtel branch in Igando close by 2pm on weekends. All of which Abdulrasheed agreed were true.

    “How many fingers were registered and did they ask for your mother’s maiden name and full street address?”

    Our correspondent answered in affirmative saying the fingers used for the registration were the thumb and index finger and supplied all necessary details involved.

    However, Abdulrasheed made a case for some of Airtel staff engaged in registration.

    “It might be a network problem. I spent a whole morning registering a particular sim,” he explained. “Those people have gone now,” he looked behind him.

    “Sometimes even the NCC rejects these details, it is not Airtel that collects the information but the NCC and they can refuse to accept the details due to incomplete registration at times. Other times it could be owing to mistakes in name, maiden name and street address. Maybe you didn’t mention yours in full.”

    In the end, Abdulrasheed offered to help our correspondent and demanded the sum of 200 naira for sim re-registration. This is not after taking our correspondent to meet other Airtel staff and asking him to fish out the bad fish. Some of his work colleagues who met with our correspondent acclaimed that it must have been a scam and the first sim registration was fraudulent.

    However, Abdulrasheed felt our correspondent was gifted a free sim since it was sold for 50 naira. Abdulrasheed went ahead to activate the line and exchanged calls with our correspondent to ascertain the validity of the line and if it was indeed working.

    For another Airtel customer whose experience isn’t quite different from our correspondent opined that the process was indeed a scam and thus fraudulent. Sadeeq Bukar, who spoke to our correspondent on the issue relayed his own experience.

    “I bought the sim registered and after some months they be telling me that my sim is not registered.” This, according to him was after three to four months of using the sim card.

    I visited Airtel registration centre and complained to them and they registered the sim again. I bought mine from those that sell sims in car and they told me it was registered.”

    When asked how much he bought the first sim, he said: “I initially paid 150 naira for the first sim registration,” but after he went to re-register the sim, he paid the sum of 100 naira.

  • My MTN SIM registration ordeal

    SIR: Year 2016 was just three days old when that message from the MTN hit my phone: N2,000 worth of  airtime with seven days validity to every network.

    I read the message again to confirm that my eyes were not deceiving me. Truly, the bonus was there for real. But I realized it was attached with a condition: visit any MTN outlet to update your Subscriber Identity module (SIM) after which the bonus would be automatically activated for use.

    I strolled down to read other messages I had somehow refused to read some days back, thinking they were just the normal season greetings one was bombarded with. Behold, tucked inside was an earlier MTN message (without a bonus), directing me to get down to my nearest registration point to update my SIM. That was three days before the year 2015 rolled away.

    Linking the two messages together, I quickly concluded the bonus was a “ploy” to entice me to re-register my line and keep faith with the Telecom giant.

    The next day, I reported for the biometric   exercise at the Alagbaka Akure outlet of the telecom. On getting there, I saw a flurry of subscribers who swamped the office like bees to nectar. To say the least, I was thrown off balance. Why would MTN put its loyal subscribers into this mess? But I had done this registration before, why ask me to repeat it? I left the centre disappointed.

    Next day, I proceeded to another centre, this time the one at Oja-oba to try my luck. Again, the crowd of registrants was large, angling the venue like desperate job applicants. Surprising there was no rush of any kind as the already enlisted names were being attended to in turns. I wasted to time to ask for the registration list, and a Good Samaritan showed me where it was placed.

    So I added my name to the already long list. But before I could finish writing my name, an old man gave an unsolicited announcement: the 300 people per day had already been shortlisted! And my number was 426! I went back home disappointed again.

    The following day, Saturday, I left home as early as 7.30am ready to face the registration huddle squarely and fully. Arriving at the Oja-oba centre, I saw fellow registrants who said they were there as early as 6.am. Soon, a man with a baritone voice announced that the number of people to attend to had reached the 300 threshold, and that anybody whose number fell above 300 on the list should come back the next day.

    My number was 250 on the list. After many hours of waiting, I received a call from a relation and when I told him what I was doing, he explained I was just wasting my precious time. He asked me to enter a certain code on my phone and that I would see that my registration had already been completed. I did as instructed and I was surprised to see the message, telling me my registration had been completed.

    But why did MTN send the message that we should revalidate? I glanced at the watch, it was 3.pm. Somehow; it was my turn to do the registration. The young computer operator input my bio-data as kept tapping the smallish computer at intervals, took my fingerprint and finally snapped me for a good picture. I was relieved. I burst out of the arena like someone escaping from a crime scene, never to return for such nasty, time wasting exercise.

     

    • Sola Lebile,

    Akure.

  • MTN opens mega centres for SIM registration

    MTN opens mega centres for SIM registration

    MTN said it has commenced the operation of special mega centres across the country for revalidating and updating customers’ subscriber identity module (SIM) registration details.

    It said its decision is guided by the national interest objectives of the exercise, adding that it will continue to make efforts to ensure that customers’ details meet specific requirements while providing additional facilities for their comfort.

    For ease of access, some of the mega centres are located in Lagos – Oshodi, Festac, Ikoyi, Victoria Island, Lekki, Ikeja and Ipaja, Alimosho. Others are in Abeokuta, Ibadan, Ilorin, Enugu, Aba, Owerri, Port-Harcourt, Warri, Calabar, Kano, Katsina, Jos, Bauchi, Abuja and Kaduna. The mega centres are designed to reduce the queues and facilitate a seamless registration process.

    Its General Manager, Consumer Marketing, Richard Iweanoge, said the roll-out of the mega registration centres nationwide is part of the extensive measures and steps taken by MTN to streamline the registration exercise in order to ensure smooth registration process for the customers.

    Iweanoge said: “We have extended opening and closing hours of most of our outlets from 7am-10pm every day of the week as well as on Saturdays and Sundays, dedicating 95 per cent of resources at our outlets to facilitate the SIM registration process for customers. MTN employees in other business areas have also been deployed to assist with SIM revalidation in our bid to reduce the long queues and large numbers of customers at our service points nationwide.”

  • SIM registration: MTN warns agents against breach of process

    SIM registration: MTN warns agents against breach of process

    Information and Communication Technology (ICT) giant, MTN, has declared its zero tolerance for compromise by agents in the registration of its SIM cards.

    It vowed to make defaulters face the full wrath of the law whenever a breach of the process in detected.

    Addressing trade partners and agents at workshops organised across the country on the SIM registration, the company’s Sales and Distribution Executive, ‘Tsola Barrow, called for due diligence and compliance with the regulations guiding the exercise.

    He said that MTN’s commitment to 100 per cent compliance at the point of registration is founded on the company’s pillars of Engagement, Accountability and Systems Improvement.

    He said: “different Business Forums will continue to be leveraged to drive enlightenment on the proper conduct of the exercise, while regular monthly and quarterly business meetings will continue to be used to emphasise the essence and importance of ensuring agents comply with SIM registration specifications and requirements, which were extensively discussed.”

    On his part, the Senior Manager, Regulatory Affairs, MTN Nigeria, Quasim Odunmbaku, said the country cannot afford to store fictitious data through incomplete SIM registration.

    MTN has invested about N10billion on SIM registration exercise since its commencement.

  • Security chief dismisses SIM registration

    Security chief dismisses SIM registration

    The State Security Service (SSS) has dismissed the ongoing subscriber identification module (SIM) card registration, arguing that information provided by subscribers to the telcos is usually misleading and has not substantially assisted the agency in tracking people that use their mobile devices to perpetrate crimes.

    Since the launch of GSM services in 2001, SIM cards were sold to subscribers without the requirement to provide proper identification but sometime in early 2008, security agencies approached the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to assist in resolving crimes perpetrated through the use of phones in which criminal elements cannot be identified with the number of the phones that they used.

    The SIM card registration, which got a budgetary approval of about N6.1 billion from the National Assembly began in 2011. While the registration of existing SIM cards ended in January 2012, telcos were directed to continue to register new SIM cards.

    Speaking through one of its directors on the sideline at the Cyber Security Forum organised by the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) and the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) in Lagos, the spy chief said telcos registered minors (small children) and other people with fake addresses that led security personnel to nowhere whenever they committed crimes.

    The director who craved anonymity, urged the Federal Government to ensure that the telcos are held  for whatever went wrong on their network.

    According to him, criminals register SIMs which they use to drive their modems and take them out of the country to wreak cyber havoc on their unsuspecting victims, thereby tarnishing the image of the country.

    He said contrary to insinuations that Nigeria is one of the countries  with the highest cyber assisted frauds, the country has no such propensity for cyber frauds. He said the big scammers are not in the country, adding that those around are mere errand boys.

    According to him, the private sector has a major role to play in helping to flush out or reducing to the barest minimum, criminal elements in the country, especially crimes perpetrated through the use of the networks of the telcos.

  • SIM registration

    SIM registration

    • Now that this is over, we expect NCC to tackle the challenges of quality of service

    Finally, the much advertised grace period for the registration of mobile telephone lines, ended on June 30. Surprisingly, the regulatory agency, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has disclosed that about 30 million lines will be de-activated, because the owners of the lines failed to register them before the expiration of the deadline.

    The reasons for such a large number of un-registered lines would vary. One, it could be that most of the operators, in an effort to outdo the other competitors, doled out more lines and incentives than they could sustain. Another could be the crisis that bedevilled the registration process.

    Whatever may have happened, the need for the registration is well appreciated, particularly its usefulness in maintaining security in the country. No doubt, communication has become very necessary in modern human activities, unfortunately, that includes criminality. Therefore the creation of the data base of the owners of telephone lines would enhance the capacity of security agencies to do their jobs. This is the practice in other countries; more so it is germane for our country with poor criminal records and capacity for criminal investigation. Such measure would also help the regulator have a more accurate number of operational lines in the country, to help it plan.

    The data base of the owners of the telephone lines is also important for commercial purposes. This will help Nigerians to know the exact number of functional lines in the country, so as to determine the sundry claims by the various operators to be the number one operator. Such information will also aid commercial decision for those who may have the need to rely on size for advertisement or other businesses. Such data base would also be useful for other various demographic needs. Nigerians and foreigners would henceforth be in a position to determine the teledensity in the country.

    The exercise could, if well managed, bring efficiency to the system. Many hitherto dormant numbers that may be causing congestion would be completely de-activated. Moreover, with the clear and reliable data open to the public, the unnecessary competition over size will be less strident and service efficiency may take over to determine the preferences of the users. This may even be further enhanced if the possibility of migrating to a more efficient service provider is efficiently assured by the regulator.

    All said, the NCC should be compelled to give an account of the over six billion naira that it received under the appropriation act for the exercise. This is because the same NCC had asked the operators to individually register the owners of the telephone lines. We also note that there was a lot of rancour and confusion at the beginning of the process, partly because of the grudge that while the NCC had received the resources for the exercise, it had passed on the responsibility to the operators, with threats if they should fail. The matter is made worse by the claim by some of those ad-hoc staff recruited to conduct the exercise that they were short-paid.

    We note that mobile telephony in Nigeria, at over 10 years, has come of age. While the challenges have been many, there have been reasons to celebrate. We therefore commend the major service providers for the enormous resources they have expended to help Nigeria make the quantum leap in telephony. There is, however, the need for them to work harder to improve their services. Indeed, this is what the regulator should focus more on now that the registration is over.

  • SIM registration blues

    SIM registration blues

    The registration of subscriber identification module (SIM) cards has been on for over two years.The exercise ends on Sunday, but many subscribers are yet to be registered. Even those who registered long ago are getting what they describe as “disheartening messages” from their service providers. Will the exercise achieve the desired result?  Lucas Ajanaku and Deji Fakorede ask.

    In 2008, the Boko Haram insurgency had not become frightening, but there were reports that some unscrupulous elements were using their mobile phones to send short service messages (SMS) and making threat calls.

    Inundated with these reports, the security agencies approached the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) for help because the calls could not be traced.

    NCC moved swiftly, convening a consultative forum involving telecoms operators, consumer groups, security agencies, telecoms associations, dealers, the Nigerian Identity Management Commission (NIMC), National Population Commission (NPC), National Census Commission, the media and other interest groups.

    The forum agreed that phone users be registered. A committee was set up to further look at the details of the implementation of the registration and submit its recommendations to the NCC. The report was reviewed and the NCC gave its blessings to the exercise.

    On March 28, 2011, amid pomp and celebration, the Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Execuitve Officer, NCC, Dr. Eugene Juwah, launched the SIM card registration in Abuja. The exercise, according to the NCC, ends on Sunday. It warned that unregistered SIMs would be deactivated by the end of the month, adding that new subscribers would continue to join the network but their cards must be registered before their activation.

    Subscribers are expressing concern over conflicting reports from their service providers. “Officials of some of the operators actually came down to my offfice and did the registration of subscribers on their network by themselves. I am amazed that few days to the end of the exercise, I am getting reports that my SIM card registration failed. I was advised to go to the nearest customer care centre to do the registration,” a journalist lamented.

    According to him, with officials of the telcos coming with all the paraphenalia of SIM card registration to his office, he had gone to bed, concluding that nothing could shake the infallibility of the exercise. “I am so shocked with the sudden twist in the tale almost at the 11th hour. I cannot leave my job and start looking around for the telco’s customer care centre which is neither close to my house nor office. And in the office, I have enormous responsibilities around my neck that would prevent me from driving to Ikeja, Berger, Mushin or the Island for the exercise,” he added.

    His plight is similar to that of thousands of others, especially those whose service providers found it extremely difficult to come out with a code which would give them an opportunity to know early the status of their SIM card regsitration. Moreover, the number of agents carrying out the exercise has paled into insignificance as they are hardly seen. “The agents are no longer as ubiquitous as they used to be when the exercise began over two years ago,” Richard Adeyeye, a Lagos-based businessman said, adding that the agents now operate in clusters.

    A SIM registration agent, who identified himself simply as Yinka, said money is collected from those registering their SIM cards because they are poorly paid by the people that hired them. His colleague, Ahmed, also confirmed that money changes hands when SIM cards are registered. According to him, they have formed an association to protect their interest.

    According to the agents, the money they charge people is used to pay for the space where they carry out the exercise. “All manner of people come here to disturb us. So, we use part of the money we make to settle the area boys and keep the rest for our fare,” one of them explained.

    NCC has dissociated itself from the money-for-SIM-registration racket. Its Director, Public Affairs, Tony Ojobo, said the agents were only doing their principals a great disservice by extorting money from subscribers. He urged subscribers not to pander to the whims and caprices of those trying to fleece them.

    Some experts in the industry have questioned the sanctity of the exercise, especially the data collated, wondering if they could serve as yardsticks for planning for the citizenry.

    A source at the NIMC deplored the exercise. According to him, the original design for the exercise was drafted by the NIMC. He claimed that when exercise began, the NCC started doing what it liked despite collecting N6.2 billion in…..

    “Based on what we did and most of the people who did it are (still around), we worked on the SIM register project; it was designed by the NIMC. We followed the standard that we felt if they adopt and implement, the data will meet our own standard and our own standard are benchmarked on the basis of international standard for such identity data base.

    “The moment we stopped being part of that project, rather than (settle for) 10 finger prints, they settled for something less and rather than the number of demographic data base we recommended, they settled for something less. Obviously, it is no longer a perfect exercise. Secondly, the background when you are doing the face shot capture, some of us have been to the high commission for visa, you know they tell you the type of background and the size of the passport photograph. There is a reason for that,” the source said.

    According to the source, there are locations where the kiosk attendants just ask the person willing to register SIM to stand well regardless of what the background is and just do the face capture.

    The source said said that practice fails to meet international requirement. “That is just an ordinary passport photograph. If you want to convert it into something that can be used to conduct face recognition, it is useless. They just asked me to stand and I did and they took my shot in their office. The place was not well lit and I shook my head that this is not what we recommended. There were certain parameters for all these,” the source added.

    Investigation shows that the face capture has since stopped. According to one of the agents, who spoke on condition of anonymity, it had to stop because the data capturing machine is not resilient enough to withstand the elements, especially the sun. The designers failed to factor the tropical sun of Africa into the machine, thus, it malfunctions at the slightest exposure to the sun.

    Corporate Services Executive, MTN, Akinwale Goodluck, admits that the exercise may not have produced an error-proof national data base. He said the operators had succeeded in handing down a data base, for the first time, to the government for security and national planning.

    Realising the importance of a dependable national database for the country, former President Olusegun Obasanjo mooted the national identity card idea in 1978. Obasanjo, then a military ruler, felt that with a credible database, economic planning will be made easy but about 36 years after, the country is still searching for a reliable identity for her citizens.

    The scheme was re-introduced in 2001 and several years later, the project failed to deliver cards to millions of Nigerians, who did all they could, including weathering the elements to register.

    The first attempt at implementing the project landed some politicians in police net 23 years ago. In 2002, another set of politicians was tried for alleged corrupt enrichment under the scheme.

    Following failed attempts, the National Identity Management Commission Act 2007, came into being towards the end of the Obasanjo administration. The NIMC management said it is prepared to hand over a dependable, fool-proof national database to the country.

    The Act provides for the establishment of NIMC, National Identity Database, assignment and use of General Multipurpose Cards (GMC), the National Identity Number (NIN) and harmonisation and integration of identity database. It repealed the law creating the Department for National Civic Registration (DNCR), a conduit through which government officials lined their pockets.

    The need for a national identity for Nigerians cannot be over-emphasised as most countries, including Pakistan have computerised identity card system with bar coding to make details of the holder available with all the intelligence, police and civil departments. The residential details of holder can easily be ascertained if these computerised cards are issued.

    The absence of this facility prompted the Bankers’ Committee’s decision last year to approach the Pensions’ Board for its harmonised customer identification management. This is because the Pension Board’s biometric scheme appeares full-proof. The Independent National Election Commission (INEC) is also seeking to use information at its database to issue permanent voter’s card.

  • SIM registration: How agents extort subscribers

    The registration of the subscriber identification module (SIM) card is being sabotaged by agents hired by the network operators for the exercise.

    The registration agents, they said, extort subscribers; are hostile and refuse to take the customers photographs. The exercise is expected to end this month.

    Contrary to the Nigerian Communications Commssion (NCC) directive that SIM registration should attract zero cost to subscribers, the agents, who operate in clusters in some part of the country extort N100 for each SIM card registerd.

    “If you are buying a new SIM, you pay N100 for the new SIM and N100 for its activation. That is the practice here. If you cannot pay, please go and look for a place where you will register the SIM,” a female agent told a subscriber.

    Some agents, in their quest to make more money, turned themselves to itinerant mobile registration agents, moving around the nook and cranny of the state to get subscribers registered.

    One agent, who introduced himself as Elvis from Cameroon, said he moved round to make more money since he is paid based on the number of subscribers registered. He was spotted at Ayetoro, on the outskirts of the city. Like, his stationary colleagues, he also charges N100 per SIM regsitered.

    Again, some of these agents are barely literate such that at the slightest provocation, they resort to use of uncouth words on people who wish to register their SIM cards with them. They insult people, especially those who dared to ask them if they could spell their names correctly.

    Contrary to the specification of the NCC, face shot capture of subscribers is rarely done. When it is ever done, it is done haphazardly with all manners of objects as background. “My face photo capture was done with the brand name of the competitor as bakcground,” one subscriber said.

    An expert said this practice does not meet international requirement. ”That is just an ordinary passport photograph. If you want to convert it into something that can be used to conduct face recognition, it is useless. They just asked me to stand and I did and they took my shot in their office. The place was not well lit and I shook my head that this is not what we recommended. There were certain parameters for all these,” he said.

    The NCC said any operator, whose agent is asking for money before SIM registration, is doing its principal a diservice. Director, Public Affairs, Tony Ojobo, insisted that SIM card registration “is free and no subscriber should be made to pay anything.”

    Responding to media enquiries, Manager, Public Affairs Relations, Etisalat, Chineze Amanfo, said the telco was working closely with the regulator to ensure the success of

    the exercise., insisting that it is at no cost at all. “Etisalat carries out SIM registrations at points of customer engagements and we have worked hand in hand to support NCC at ensuring strict adherence to the subscriber registration guidelines. Our agents across all channels are duly trained on the guidelines of subscriber registrations and do not demand money for this exercise.

    “SIM registration services are at no cost to our subscribers and our supervisors in charge of SIM Registration regularly carry out checks at the points of registration to ensure all agents are following laid down guidelines. We withdraw our device and terminate our contract with any agent that goes against these rules,” she said.

  • SIM registration: Operators kick against June deadline

    Ahead the June 30 official end to ongoing national registration of subscriber identification module (SIM) in the country, telecoms operators have kicked against the decision of the regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to end the programme, arguing that it is like putting the cart before the horse.

    The Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) said they were not prepared to end the exercise.

    The group’s Chairman, Gbenga Adebayo, said: “Given the reality of what we face today, you know we have had significant disruption in our activities in some parts of the country, which has also affected the movement of persons and business activities. So, circumstances in the last three or four months haven’t really helped situation as it were. Therefore, readiness, as we have today, I can say to you is not 100 per cent.”

    According to him, disconnecting subscribers on the network is improper, adding that the regulator should show leadership and direction by first coming clean with information about the integrity of the data it gathered too in the course of the exercise.

    “I think what the NCC itself should do is to provide a direction of the data base it has registered. Recall that we did some part and NCC also did some part. So, if NCC is putting the deadline of 30th of June, I think also situation demand that NCC should give a declaration of the readiness or integrity of the data it has recorded over the period before putting a blanket disconnection order on service providers.

    ‘’So, for me, I think before we go out to say subscribers that are unregistered should be disconnected, I think we should embark on data clean up where there will be integration of data registered by the operators and those registered by the regulator and after the outcome of that, we can take a decision either to disconnect or not. But as it is today, it will appear that NCC is sitting on its own data, no one knows the integrity of the data it has collated. We haven’t done harmonisation of the data collected by them and by us and (the NCC) is coming to give June deadline, I think there is need to review the decision again,” he said.

    On what the operators have invested in the exercise, he said it was premature to begin to speak on the exercise that gave a whopping National Assembly budgetary approval of N6.1 billion to the NCC.

    “May be when we come to the end of the exercise will be the time to talk about how much we have spent. Don’t forget that works are still ongoing,” he said.

    But the NCC has said total number of registered subscribers will only be available when the exercise ends this month end. Director, Public Affairs, NCC, Tony Ojobo, told The Nation that all the operators are expected to forward their data to the NCC. “NCC ha stopped SIM reg but the operators are still doing it.

    They are still compiling data which they will send to the NCC at the end of the exercise,” he said.

    South Africa, the home of MTN, spent $119 million on SIM reg that ended June 30, 2011. While the MTN Group spent 250 million rand (about $37.10 million) on marketing and news staff, Vodacom and Cell C spent between 300 and 400 rands.