April 17, 2008	Thursday	Rabi-us-Sani 10, 1429

KARACHI, April 16: The cell-phone operators, on the instruction of Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), have blocked 1.36 million unverified connections given all over the country from January 2007 to-date.

The PTA and cell-phone operators had been issuing warning to the general public through the media to verify their SIMs, otherwise their connections would be blocked.

Besides, only 10 connections per operator had been allowed to an individual.

The individuals holding more than 10 connections were asked through SMS to select only 10 connections as extra ones were being blocked, the official said.

The cell-phone firms’ officials said after a new media campaign, that ended in the first week of this month, consumers had shown positive response by personally providing the details to the dealers.

A PTA official told Dawn that despite the media campaign had been suspended in the first week of this month, the authority will continue to carryout surveys/ground checks of outlets (franchisees/retailers) on a regular basis and mobile companies will be held responsible for any violation on part of registered or unregistered franchisees or retailers.

The data has been compiled by the PTA after gathering information from the cell-phone companies, he added.

The official said that it had been noticed the cell-phone companies had expanded their distribution channels to increase their sales without much focus on verification of subscribers’ antecedents, which invited increased concerns from the law enforcement and security agencies.

To address the situation, the PTA adopted a series of procedures in consultation with the operators and law enforcement agencies but the desired results were not achieved.

In 2007, a strict directive was issued by the authority dividing the verification in two parts i.e. “new connection sales” and “cleaning of old data” with clear deadlines for mobile operators to complete the task.

PTA’s zonal offices were subsequently instructed to conduct confidential surveys in order to verify sale of connections on authentic documents. The survey revealed considerable improvement in new connections sales through the franchisees in major cities and few small cities. The mobile operators were, therefore, served with a legal notice to make the situation better.

The official said that all the cell-phone operators were again asked on February 22, 2008 to make the process simpler. As per new directives, companies will only sell SIMs/connections through their customer service outlets, franchisees and registered retailers.

Evidence of the outlets’ registration will be ensured by cell-phone companies at all sales premises (franchisees/retailers). Sale of SIMs/connections found through free lance/unregistered outlets will be traced back by the operators and registration of the concerned franchisee will be cancelled permanently.

About new connection, the PTA official said, the new connections will be verified through Nadra.

Director corporate communication Telenor Pakistan, Syed Hasanat Masood, said actually the issue of unregistered SIMs was a complex one in the fastest growing market and all the stakeholders (PTA, Nadra, mobile industry, law enforcement agencies, trade people and customers) should be involved.

He said that the company had 90 per cent of its data checked in collaboration with Nadra. However, 100 per cent real time SIM verification is not possible because of unavoidable procedural time lags between customers signing forms, manual entry into the system, data forwarding and Nadra verification.

The company is sending SMS to unregistered customers for their registration by coming over to the sales office followed by frequent calls to the customers. The company staff is going deep in the interior areas making announcement on loudspeakers asking people to register their SIMs.

An official in another cell-phone company said that so far the customers’ response had been satisfactory.