DHAKA: Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) chairman Major General (retd) Zia Ahmed categorically said there would be no selling of pre-activated SIM (subscriber identification module) card for cell phone from October 12 as the telecom regulator has decided to ban selling of pre-activated SIM.
The mobile-phone operators will activate the SIM only after verifying the identification of its users.
Zia Ahmed said, “The commission has determined to stop selling of unregistered SIM cards to reduce criminal activities and illegal VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) business.”
BTRC and other law enforcing agencies found out that some people both individually and in groups are commencing various types of criminal activities, including operation illegal VoIP business by using mostly unauthorized SIMs.
BTRC already sent letters to the mobile phone operators to inform its decision and advice them to take proper action to follow the directive.
In another directive, it asked the operators to withdraw their pre-activated prepaid SIM cards from market within the stipulated time.
The verification process will be automated after the database of election commission is updated and activated.
BTRC recently traced out as much as 15,254 unauthorized SIM cards of six mobile-phone operators had been used mostly for illegal VoIP operations for which it fined the operators US$762,700 for these SIM cards at a rate of US$50 each.
BDST: 1920 HRS, SEP 08, 2012
Edited by: Abul Kalam Azad, Newsroom Editor/ M. Mahbub Alam, Asst Output Editor/ SM Salahuddin, Output Editor
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