Mobile SIM card registration, which has been raising concerns such as the impact on operator performance and privacy issues, is taking off across Africa.
This initiative, which aims to crack down on criminal activities, has become a priority for telecoms regulators across the African continent and some countries have already completed the process.
Some of the countries processing mobile SIM registrations include Tanzania, SA, Botswana, Egypt, Nigeria and Ghana.
This week, the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe became the latest addition.
This follows the closing date for SIM card registrations in the country on 28 February.
Once the deadline passed, the country's telecoms operators, NetOne, Telecel and Econet, downloaded data about their registered subscribers to the national registry.
Around 70% of Zimbabwe's mobile phone users registered their SIM cards before the deadline. The remaining 30% of SIM card connections will be terminated.
Success stories
Botswana completed its process on 31 January 2010 and the Botswana Telecommunications Authority (BTA) says the country's three operators combined had registered a total of 2 026 142 subscribers.
As at 31 December 2009, 85% of the total prepaid subscriber base had already registered. SIM card registration started on 15 September 2008, the BTA says.
After extending its deadline three times, Kenya completed the process in September last year and the country had registered 13.8 million subscribers by September out of its client base of 16.24 million.
The east African nation had registered over 600 000 subscribers, representing 40% of its total base of 1.5 million, while Telkom Kenya had 386 000 out of a subscriber base of 552 294, media reports say.
Silver lining
Last year, SA extended the deadline for mobile SIM card registration, to continue until 30 June 2011.
Mobile operators have been lobbying for an extension for some time now, as unregistered cellular customers were to be disconnected from their respective mobile networks on 31 December.
The law is designed to combat crime committed using mobile phones and curb the device theft. The Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-Related Information Act (RICA) requires that anyone who has a SIM card register by providing a copy of their ID document and a proof of residence.
However, in Nigeria, the telecoms regulator, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) says it is battling to complete the exercise of SIM registration of over 80 million telecom subscribers, through its consulting partners across regions.
Telecom operators in Nigeria were initially involved in SIM registration last year, but the exercise was taken over by the NCC, following the inability of telcos to complete the exercise within six months as stipulated.
In February this year, NCC commissioned seven firms as contracting partners to carry out SIM card registration nationwide. They are to commence SIM card registration across the country and have six months to complete the task.
However, the NCC says the rate of registration appears slow as subscribers could not identify registration centres set up by the consulting partners.
Mozambique was the latest country to call for a compulsory SIM registrations telecoms regulator.
Share