Users can buy back unregistered SIMs in 18 months

The telecom regulator has decided that any mobile connection that was terminated on Tuesday mid-night will be opened if the respective subscriber buys back the SIM and completes his or her biometric re-registration in next 18 months.
The government-set deadline for biometric re-registration of mobile phone connections ended on Tuesday with around 2.5 to 3 crore SIMs remaining unregistered.
These connections were supposed to be terminated on Tuesday mid-night.
Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission on Monday night issued a fresh directive withdrawing the two-month suspension on the unregistered mobile connections that would be terminated from June 1. The previous directive said the customers will not be allowed to retrieve their SIMs for next two months.
According to the new BTRC directive, any subscriber can buy-back his/her unregistered SIM by completing the biometric registration in next 18 months beginning from June 1.
Initially, the mobile companies will wait for 15 months so that the original subscribers complete biometric re-registration of the unregistered SIMs.
After 15 months, the operators will give notices to subscribers saying that their unregistered numbers would be assigned to new customers, if they do not complete re-registration in next three months.
The mobile phone companies will be allowed to re-sell the unregistered SIMs to new clients if the original owners do not claim the SIMs in the 18-month timeframe, said the directive.
The government in December last year made biometric re-registration of SIMs mandatory claiming that it would help to reduce crimes through mobile phones.
According to government data, 10.09 crore SIMs were re-registered through biometric process until Saturday with one day remaining for registration while the total active SIMs in the country was 13.19 crore.
Officials of the mobile phone companies said that around 2.5 crore SIMs would fail to complete the registration in time.
They also said that it would take two to three days to completely terminate all the unregistered SIMs by six companies.
‘In last two days, the re-registration turn out was huge. So it is possible that the industry might have added around 50 lakh re-registered SIMs. Even after that more than 2.5 core SIMs will still remain unregistered,’ a senior official of a mobile phone company told New Age.
The mobile phone company officials also said that losing such big chunk of subscribers would affect the revenue of the industry.
The telecom state minister Tarana Halim, however, ruled out any possible harm to the revenue because of the move.
The move was criticised by a section of the people and the legality of the move was also challenged in the court.
Later, the government got the High Court nod to carry on the re-registration process.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net