Cut off unlisted lines, phone firms ordered

As at August 25, about five million lines had not been registered. Photo/MICHAEL MUTE
By JEVANS NYABIAGE
Posted Tuesday, August 31 2010 at 17:22

The government has directed all mobile phone operators to deactivate all SIM cards that have not been registered, in a move aimed at curbing crime.

Information minister Samuel Poghisio used the Kenya Communications Act 2009, Section 23, which requires operators to have a directory, to direct operators to struck-off their network all users who will not have registered their SIM cards.

According to Mr Poghisio, the operators have until September 15 to compile their data, and after that all the four operators Safaricom, Orange, Zain and Yu will be required to have the directories in place.

He said that there are some pieces of the legislation that have been sent to the Attorney General for Miscellaneous Amendments.

According to statistics from the industry regulator—the Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK), and based on operator returns, as at August 25, about 15.3 millions lines had been registered out of the total 20.3 subscribers in Kenya, representing 75 per cent.

This number is expected to have materially changed by August 31 as more traffic was expected as subscribers tried to beat the deadline set by CCK.

Zain Kenya, out of the 2.08 million subscribers that were on its network by August 25, 1, about 1.39 million had registered, which represented 67 per cent success rate.

The industry’s fourth operator Essar Telecom Kenya Ltd which trades as Yu had enrolled about 445,000 from a total of 1.5 million, returning the lowest rate of registration of 30 per cent.

Telkom Kenya’s Orange brand, had registered about 250,000 users out of half a million, which is 50 per cent.

Market leader in subscriber numbers and revenue, Safaricom Ltd, with 16.2 million subscribers had registered 13.2 million lines, 81 per cent.

This means as at August 25, about five million lines had not been registered.

However, Information Permanent Secretary Dr Bitange Ndemo said that practically most subscribers have registered, considering the fact that many have multiple SIM cards.

CCK director-general Mr Charles Njoroge, said, "this is not optional, all operators must cooperate. It is expected that all lines in the operators’ systems will have been registered, those not will have to be blacklisted. This is part of the requirement in their returns”

He said that the systems will be programmed in such a way that after August 15, all unregistered lines will automatically be deactivated.

South Africa, Cameroun, Tanzania and Nigeria have also carried out SIM card registrations.

In the South Africa exercise, one operator, Vodacom lost at least 1 million subscribers - that is, one million casual users were disconnected.

In Kenya, especially thinking of handsets promotions (buy a handset and get a line free + 100 airtime, there are quite a number of unused lines.

Mr Francis Hook the regional manager for IDC East Africa, in an earlier interview said the migratory users who have three SIMs in their purse/wallet and one in their handset and now must be compelled to decide who is their “true love”… or register all lines) – across all networks, this may result in a loss of at least 2 million subscribers.

This, he says may end up reducing overall “penetration” considerably, at least by 8-12 per cent.

The government had extended the exercise that was scheduled to end on July 31, due to what Dr Ndemo, termed as 'logistical difficulties’, however, now it is determined to crack-down criminals who use mobile phones to commit crime.