Ownership period of unused SIMs may go down

Bangladesh Telecommuni-cation Regulatory Commission is going to reduce the ownership period of unused mobile connections to six months from 15 months now, so that the operators are able to sell those numbers again and clear their existing stock of used but inactive SIMs.

At a meeting last week, BTRC formed a 14-member committee to finalise a proposal within one month.

At present, the operators have a huge collection of SIMs that are not being used for the last three to 15 consecutive months.

BTRC had earlier set the maximum ownership period at two years, which was later reduced to 15 months in October last year.

Grameenphone is currently facing a scarcity of sellable numbers; it was already assigned a new number series -- 013 -- in August along with its existing 017.

Grameenphone has 5.45 crore active SIMs but the operator is unable to sell around three crore numbers as the 15-month ownership period has not expired yet for those numbers, BTRC officials said.

As per rules, if any SIM remains unused for three consecutive months, it becomes inactive. After 15 months, the operators have to issue a warning to the SIM owner with a three-month response time to activate the SIM.

If the owner fails to respond in time, the operator can re-sell the number at the regular price. “It looks like a strategic move of the regulator to contain the operators within a number series.

If there is a genuine need, we will allow new numbers,” said a senior official of BTRC. “Reducing the ownership period of unused SIMs is a better option, as we have only three number series left.”

There is a chance that the operator will issue the warning after three months, and the SIMs will be saleable after six months, he added. According to the National Numbering Plan, each number series allows a mobile operator to sell 10 crore connections with an 11-digit number.

Among the existing companies, Citycell was assigned 011, Teletalk 015, Airtel 016, Robi 018, Grameenphone 017 and Banglalink 019 as their number series.

Meanwhile, Banglalink, with a subscriber-base of 2.89 crore, has also applied for a new number series.

The merger between Robi and Airtel will allow the merged entity, namely Robi, to enjoy a 20 crore connection facility combining the capacity of the two operators.