POTRAZ authorises mobile operators to start penalizing unregistered subscribers

Zimbabwe’s telecoms regulator, POTRAZ, has authorised mobile operators in the country to start implementing some ‘restrictive measures’ on subscribers. This, according to POTRAZ, will force mobile subscribers to register their lines before the 28 February registration deadline.

Explaining the move the POTRAZ director general, Eng Charles Sibanda, told Zim news agency, New Ziana, that the move was designed to force subscribers as some are thinking registration is optional:

We have authorised operators to start implementing restrictions on unregistered lines which will lead to disconnections. These are, making the line fail to recharge or getting access during congestions.

Subscribers still feel it’s not mandatory for them to register their lines. So these restrictions should force them to register during the remaining days before deadline.

The statistics released by POTRAZ indicate that all mobile operators still have a sizeable number of unregistered lines. According to the stats, out of a total of 4.1 million Econet subscribers, only 2.97 subscribers have registered. Telecel has 729,480 registered lines out of a total of 1.27 million and NetOne has about 50,000 unregistered lines out of 1 million subscribers.

It’s not clear if the total subscribers indicated here are the actual total subscribers the mobile networks have as just last year Econet announced it had hit 5 million subscribers. We’ll get some clarification on this.

The directive to register all subscribers was given mobile operators by POTRAZ last year. The initial deadline was 31 August 2010 but all mobile operators failed to meet it resulting in the shift to 28 February 2011. Since last month, POTRAZ has been issuing reminders to subscribers in the press.

This latest move by POTRAZ is quite strange though. Strange that the regulator is authorising operators to start penalizing subscribers before the deadline itself has expired. If for any reason a subscriber has not registered and the deadline has not expired, isn’t it logical that the subscriber has not flouted any regulation?