27MILLION LINES AT RISK AS NCC DISCONNECTS UNREGISTERED SIMS TODAY

If you are reading this and you have not registered your phone line(s), it may just be almost late. In fact, you need not wonder why you may neither receive nor complete any calls from today.

This is because the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, says the collation, harmonisation and authentication of the subscriber’s identification modules, SIMs card registration it embarked upon in conjunction with all the telecom operators in Nigeria, since 2011, ends today, and those whose numbers were not captured will be disconnected.

For the past two years, the industry regulator (NCC) has embarked on a massive campaign, sensitizing telephone subscribers on the need to register their phones to enable a proper record of subscribers in the country, effective monitoring of telecommunications activities and cut down on phone-related crimes.

The regulator also made it clear that after a  six-month period which expires on September 2011, those who did not register their lines stood the risk of losing them by deactivation.

However, following the panic, tension and anxiety as the exercise came to an end, the Commission allowed a grace period by asking people who had not registered to go to their operators to do so while it was collating, harmonising and authenticating the data already gathered.

The harmonisation and authentication exercise have taken over one year and the NCC, a few months back, declared that on June 30, 2013, all unregistered lines would be deactivated.

Tension in the industry is at its height. This also reflects the growing nature of Nigerian telecom industry and the intrigues which heralded the exercise, March 2011 when it was flagged off.

As at Thursday, about 27 million SIMs out of the 164 million connected lines and 119 million active were said to be still unregistered.  MTN Nigeria, according to figures from the NCC has 52 million subscribers; Globacom, 24.3 million; Airtel, 24.1 million; and Etisalat, 15.1 million.

How it all beganIn the wake of unending security challenges facing the country, it became expedient that measures needed to be taken. In 2009, the then Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Engr Ernest Ndukwe, opted for SIM registration as one of the measures.

SIM registration is a standard practice in almost all economies of the world for its ability to check phone crimes and, in Nigeria, such crimes, including death threats via text messages and kidnappings, were becoming common.

Source: Vanguard