A strong lobby is being mounted by Nigeria’s biggest telecommunication firms against plans by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to begin the registration of all subscriber identity module (SIM) card in the country in March.
MTN, Globacom, Zain and Etisalat all say the time frame proposed is unrealistic, besides serious questions that surround the modalities to be adopted by the NCC.
Also, network operators say that they will prefer to register their over 70 million subscribers themselves, rather than have the exercise conducted by external consultants as proposed by the NCC. This option, they say, will be more secure and thorough, as well as save government the huge financial costs.
Also, government has been asked to reconsider some of the particulars of its SIM registration rule, so as save the telecom industry from decline.
The NCC recently issued a directive that all new and existing subscribers of the country’s telecom networks be properly registered with effect from March 1, 2010. The registration will require verification with e-passports, drivers’ licences and certain other identification documents.
The directive had been in the works for over one year. The move is an effort to have a proper record of telephone subscribers in the country and to be able to identify and trace telephone users in case of criminal or other anti-social conduct.
Says Steve Evans, CEO of Etisalat: “The cost is significant. This is because of the information you need from both existing and future customers. South Africa has been doing this, but it will run into big costs.” Evans says the exercise could lead to a decline or slow down in customer base.
“First of all, you have to get information on both existing and new customers. Some customers will have problem providing the needed information for identification purposes. “The operators also need enough time to prepare and carry out the exercise. In South Africa, for example, the operators are being given between 18 and 24 months. You will be cutting off a lot of customers. “It is not good for the operators, it is not good for the customers and it is not good for the economy,” an official of a telecomm company told BusinessDay.
Wale Goodluck, MTN’s corporate services executive, agrees. “It will definitely affect operations. If you look at the experience in Ivory Coast, Cameroon and South Africa, the effect is that it will erode your connection. Secondly, at the end of the exercise, a lot of people may choose not to be registered, then you lose the revenue from those subscribers.
“Definitely, it will have a negative effect on operations. What is important is to manage this effect to the best of our ability, both from a regulatory perspective and from an operator perspective.
“Regarding the registration of new subscribers, rather than put a blanket ban on activated SIMs, what I think is best practice is that we should be allowed to sell activated SIMs, but only active one way. So it is uni-directional. That means that you only receive calls on it, you cannot make calls until you register and if you don’t register after a given period, you are disconnected from the network”.
Regards
Easy.
Bravo NCC.