Ugandans register their SIM Cards at an MTN service centre in Kampala, Uganda. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP
In April, keen to beat the May 15 mobile phone number validation
deadline set by the Uganda Communications Commission, a local
journalist walked into an MTN Uganda service outlet and presented his
national ID.
Soon after, the staff
captured his photo and thumbprints then verified his ID via the National
Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA). Then he left.
Later,
he received a text message that his personal details had been
confirmed. But two days later, the telco sent another message asking him
to go and validate his user details before the official deadline
elapsed!
When he queried the text
alert, MTN staff assured him that his personal details had been
confirmed and that he was not at risk of disconnection. But on May 16,
the journalist’s phone number was blocked from making calls and sending
SMS texts. More visits to MTN service outlets produced no results before
the user was told on May 18 that his problem would be rectified in 24
hours, but still this effort bore no fruit.
Frustrated,
the journalist walked into downtown Kampala on May 20 and found a small
mobile money dealer who promised to fix the problem within 24 hours for
Ush5,000 ($1.32). And true to the dealer's word, it was fixed.
The
journalist’s woes, resulting in his choice of the black market, are a
testament to the inefficiency, low investment in and a trial-and-error
approach to mobile phone number validation by the UCC.
But the journalist is not alone.
“My
MTN number was partly blocked because I failed to validate it. I
applied to NIRA for a national ID sometime back but I’m yet to receive
it. Every time I inquire about my application, they refer me to a
different office,” said Shafic Matende, another affected user.
VALIDATION
Efforts to obtain responses from MTN Uganda over this matter had borne no fruit by press time.
But a source at NIRA dismissed this come-back-after-24-hours line as false.
“Validation
of mobile phone user data is done in real time. Our agreed position
with UCC and the telecom companies provided for a third party gateway
through which all telecom companies are required to submit customer data
for validation and this interface operates 24/7. Anyone who tells you
that it takes 24 hours to validate customer data is lying,” said a NIRA
source.
UCC could not confirm the number of subscribers affected by validation problems.
UCC
set a strict deadline for telecommunications firms to fix loopholes in
their registration data, but little attention has been paid to the
customer challenges linked to this exercise. As a result, cases have
emerged of mobile phone users who validated their personal details in
time but got disconnected after the official deadline.
However,
UCC itself has not escaped blame, with some telcos pointing accusing
fingers at its trial-and-error approach which has exposed technical
failures in regulatory actions, service provider loopholes and signs of
compliance fatigue.
“UCC keeps
issuing new data collection requirements and changing compliance
timelines,” said a senior manager at one of the telecommunications firms
who requested anonymity.
“For
example, a two-year compliance period for new customer registration and
validation standards was suddenly cut to three months. Deployment of new
software systems is difficult because they take about three months to
achieve high efficiency levels after clearing computer bugs. I believe
the failure by MTN’s system to validate some subscriber data in real
time is caused by such bugs,” he added.
The
government says the validation exercise is targeted at mobile phone
users with missing facial and thumbprint images in their SIM card
registration files and those who have more than one mobile number
registered in their names.
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