Over 2 million SIMs bought beyond BTRC ceiling will be deactivated

The BTRC has ordered deactivation of over 2 million mobile phone SIM cards bought by the subscribers beyond the stipulated number of 15 per national ID.

The extra SIM cards will be deactivated between 12:01am and 6am on Friday, BTRC Senior Assistant Director Md Zakir Hossain Khan told bdnews24.com on Thursday.

As many as 461,261 of these SIM cards are of Grameenphone, 455,831 of Banglalink, 419,202 of Robi, 225,741 of Airtel and 487,892 of Teletalk, according to Zakir.

BTRC chief Jahurul Haque said he hoped the effort to ensure safety would make the telecom sector more disciplined.

The Association of Mobile Telecom Operators of Bangladesh or AMTOB in a statement said it had applied for some more time to deactivate the SIM cards.

“Many of these SIMs are used for internet connections or financial purposes. We hope the regulator will respond to our plea positively considering the subscribers’ problems,” it said.

The BTRC had set 20 SIM per subscriber as the ceiling in mid-2016 and cut it to five a year later.

It reviewed the decision again and on Oct 24, 2017, gave the opportunity to have maximum 15 SIM cards against one NID.

The subscribers can check the number of SIM cards registered against any NID through SMS.

A subscriber will need to dial *16001# first. In USSD code service, they will be asked for the last four digits of their NID number. They will get the number of SIM cards against the NID in a return SMS.

They can also know the number of SIM cards by sending the last four digits of their NID to 16001 via SMS.

Corporate users, who buy a number of SIM cards for their organisation, do not have to respect the ceiling.