Only unregistered mobile phone SIM cards will have to be registered: BTRC

Those who have registered their mobile phone SIM cards properly during purchase will not be required to go through the process again, says the telecom regulator.

Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) Chairman Sunil Kanti Bose at a press briefing on Monday said, “Not all of the 130 million SIMs will have to be registered again.”
 
The re-registration process has been going on for the past three months.
 
According to BTRC data, there were about 128.7 million mobile-phone subscribers in Bangladesh until July this year.
 

Bose said he attended a meeting convened on this issue at the ​​Posts and Telecommunication Division on Sunday.

“The meeting decided that the unregistered SIMs will have to be registered. But I don’t think every single one of the 130 million SIMs are fake,” he said.

The BTRC recently started a drive to stop the sale of unregistered SIMs following allegations that some of these untraceable SIM cards were being used for criminal operations.

Minister of State for Posts and Telecommunications Tarana Halim has also personally taken initiatives to prevent use of unregistered SIMs.

She took part in some of the BTRC drives conducted as part of the crackdown to stop the sale of unregistered SIMs.

The BTRC chief on Monday said, “Retailers and distributors usually sell the unregistered SIMs to those who are not real users. Owners of these SIMs have been asked to register. Otherwise, those will be deactivated during scrutiny.”

“This is only the follow up of the previous directive. Those who have properly registered earlier won’t have to register again.”

Mobile-phone operators say lack of permission to crosscheck the users’ information with the data in the National Identity Card (NID) server was holding them back from completing the registration process properly.

But Bose said, “The operators are not giving this matter importance because this is a tough job.

“Their costs will go up if they have to employ more staff to control the sale of SIMs at a low price. One SIM will then cost Tk 500 to Tk 600. They could not do it because of this.”

He, however, did not set any deadline for the re-registration process or for the deactivation of the unregistered SIMs.

“The process has been on for the past three months. Let them complete the registration process. Then those (unregistered SIMs) will be deactivated.”

State Minister Tarana Halim also recently reiterated on several occasions that connections of the unregistered SIMs would be deactivated.

The High Court had also ordered immediate deactivation of all unregistered mobile SIM cards last year.