Archive for January 29th, 2009

No More Pre-activated SIMs From Feb 1

Published by Babar Bhatti on January 29, 2009 under Emerging Markets Telecom, PTA, SIM, Telecommunications

The SIM ownership and activation policy in Pakistan has been shifting towards more verification and control by government. After many rounds of discussions and process changes, PTA has finally announced that there will be a new system for sale and activation of mobile SIMs from February 1, 2009. The main idea is to ensure that mobile phone connections are notsold or issued without verification from NADRA. ThereforeSIMs will be activated after complete verification of the user data. Last year, the process was in place but not all the verificaiton happened, it was mainly capturing of data and sending it to NADRA. This is going to cause more headaches to the mobile operators who are already under pressure due to the high taxes and economic downturn.

Widely reported in Media.

PTA Zonal Director Abdul Batin issued strict instructions on Tuesday to all Mobile Operators to provide necessary facilities to their customers for early activation of SIMs without any difficulty. PTA has also issued strict instruction that no mobile operator will sell pre-activated SIMs after January 31, 2009 and without confirmation of NADRA, the SIMs cannot be activated. PTA’s Zonal Director has also asked mobile phone customers to confirm that whether their SIMs are on their name or not. Use of unauthorised and illegal SIMs will be banned and without confirmation of customer data all SIMs will be blocked.