Telecoms rush to beat Sim card registration deadline

What you need to know:

Fine. The regulator has said it will penalise non-compliant firms.

Kampala. There are queues building up at several telecom service centres as subscribers with unregistered Sim cards rush to beat the November 30 deadline.
At several service centres visited subscribers complained about the process of registration.
“Why did you not tell us earlier?” one subscriber shouted at an MTN Uganda service centre at the Shoprite Lugogo mall.
“They are threatening to switch-off our Sim cards yet they sold them to us,” an Airtel Uganda customer complained at a service centre on Kampala Road.
Telecom companies are expected to switch-off unregistered Sim cards on November 30 to avoid being penalised by Uganda Communications Commission (UCC).

Companies in panic
The telecoms are also in panic as they struggle to beat the deadline. They have been scampering, in the last one month, to have unregistered Sim cards registered.
“Airtel will deactivate any partially registered subscribers on its network by November 30, 2015,” Mr Sandor Walusimbi, the public and corporate affairs manager Airtel Uganda, told Daily Monitor.
Airtel is weary that at least 5 per cent of its nearly eight million customers could be switched off.
“We are committed to ensuring we comply with the directive of the regulator Uganda Communications Commission and have been working with our subscribers to comply with the law,” he added.
MTN Uganda, which runs an entire verification centre at the former British American Tobacco warehouse near the Ministry of Internal Affairs, blames logistical challenges for the failure to comply in 2013.
Mr Brian Gouldie, the chief executive officer, said it is required to store all documentation physically and at the moment, at least 37 million documents are in the warehouse.
He refused to disclose information on how many Sim cards could be switched off on deadline day.
“At the time the switch off is implemented, MTN Uganda shall be compliant. MTN Uganda doesn’t anticipate that it will have to deal with any fine,” Mr Gouldie told reporters last week.
Last month, UCC gave the telecom companies what it called the last deadline to have switched off all unregistered Sim cards by November 30.
“We have warned them several times but this time we are serious. We have written to all of them (telecoms). This time we mean it. If they fail, we will penalise them and also move in to deactivate all the unlicenced Sim cards,” executive director Godfrey Mutabazi warned.

The exercise
SIM card registration started in March 2013 and was supposed to be completed in September the same year. But for two years now, the sale of unregistered SIM card continued. Then, companies were expected to switch off unregistered SIM cards, but they did not.