NCC to cut off unregistered SIM cards from June 30
He said that unregistered SIM cards would not be able to make or receive calls and send or receive Short Messaging Services (SMS) form June 30.
The NCC official also said that the action was to have taken effect in April, but the service providers requested that the date be extended.
According to him, the telecoms operators are using the extended period to verify SIM cards on their networks to ascertain the registered and unregistered ones.
``The verification has actually started and that is why people get text messages asking them to register, if you have not, you register and if you have registered, you ignore it.
``The verification is going to continue until that date when we will cut off unregistered SIM cards,'' he said.
Ojobo said that since the verification exercise started, subscribers had been responding by registering their SIM cards.
He said that the regulatory body would be announcing the registration deadline in the media across the country.
According to him, the commission will do the announcement in different languages so that even the telecom consumers at the remotest areas will be aware.
It would be recalled that the NCC had on Wednesday, May 8, fined MTN, Airtel, Globacom and Etisalat the sum of N53.8 million, for selling pre-registered SIM cards on their networks.
The fines imposed were based on the number of fully activated new SIM cards that were either reported to the commission or purchased.
The fines were to ensure compliance with the monitoring and enforcement exercises conducted by the commission and validated by the offending network.
Each of such pre-registered SIMs found attracts a penalty of N200, 000.
Airtel was fined N8.6 million for 43 pre-registered SIM cards during the exercise.
Etisalat was fined the sum of N5 million for 25 pre-registered SIM cards, while Globacom Ltd was fined N11 million for 55 pre-registered SIM cards.
MTN was fined N29.2 million for 146 pre-registered SIM cards.
The service providers were given up to seven days to pay the fine, failure of which attracts N500, 000 for any additional day that the contravention persisted.
Businessdayonline.
