ALTON, NATCOMS urge NCC to extend SIM registration deadline

The Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) and National Telecommunications Subscribers (NATCOMS) have urged the industry regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to extend the registration of Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) cards deadline.

DigitalSENSE Business News Both ALTON and NATCOM are asking for a three-month extension to be granted telecom subscribers for the last time and for various reasons.

While ALTON attributed its request on the security situation in the country and the general logistic problem, NATCOMS alleged that inappropriate data collection by some agents gave rise to its request.

ALTON in a letter dated Friday, June 28, 2013 and signed by the duo of its chairman, Engr. Gbenga Adebayo and Executive Secretary, Mr. Kazeem Ladepo, addressed to the Executive Vice Chairman, NCC, Dr. Eugene Juwah, noted “It has been very difficult for the subscribers, registration agents and our members – Operators; to meet the 30^th June 2013 deadline.”

A copy of the letter made available to DigitalSENSE Business News, ALTON warned of the eluding danger in of mass disconnection of un-registered subscribers as notified by NCC before now.

“We would like to draw your attention that although the SIM Card Registration has been ongoing for sometimes but subscribers has embraced this exercise more in the past few weeks leading to the 30^th June 2013 deadline,” ALTON said.

The group appreciated efforts of NCC on this process and the attendant public awareness campaign over the past few weeks; hence ALTON believes the exercise would be more successful if an extension of time is considered.

“We hereby request for a three (3) months extension to the SIM Card Registration exercise in order for its overall success,” ALTON submitted.

Equally NATCOMS President, Chief Deolu Ogunbanjo, told DigitalSENSE Business News that during the SIM Registration exercise, some umbrella SIM registration agents were not collecting the full details needed because of the rush by the agents to register as many subscribers so as get paid big.

Also, the consumer group alleged that agents were asking subscribers to pay N100 before registration, which discourages a large number of subscribers.

These were in addition to claims by some agents that they were of a particular network operator, thereby refusing to register other operators’ SIM cards in order to shore up the number of SIM Cards they register daily.

Even as NATCOMS further alleged that some of the agents copy their daily registered list of subscribers to their colleagues so as to ‘help’ them.

According to NATCOMS, in view of the above submissions, a lot of subscribers will be locked out due to no fault of theirs as they think they have registered their SIM Cards.

“Against the backdrop of the above and in order to ensure that every subscriber is given fair consideration, we are appealing to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to give Nigerian subscribers a 3-Month one-way final warning extension on SIM Cards registration, to enable them to receive calls only,” Ogunbanjo argued.

DigitalSENSE Business News recalls that NCC had introduced SIM registration programme on March, 2011 and was to end in September, 2011, but owing to pleas by the likes of these two organization, it was extended by 21 months, which now expires on June 30, 2013.

Remmy Nweke/DigitalSENSE Business News

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