Adress Verification Required for New Phone SIMs in Pakistan

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July 22, 2008

Interior Ministry Comes up With Remedy of Pakistani Mobile Users

Daily times has reported in its July 22, 2008 edition as following

The federal government has decided that Mobile SIMs will now be posted to the addresses given by applicants and not handed over to the purchaser on the spot. An Interior Ministry spokesman told reporters that any violation of this procedure shall be punishable under the relevant laws and necessary instructions had been issued to Chairman PTA in this regard.

Aamir Atta wrote in his blog

This is a very sharp step taken by government. Maybe it was only solution left with the government; given that PTA and cellular companies were not showing good results regarding the sale of illegal SIMs.

I think that this method may delay the process of SIM activation and may result into problems for users, but the legislation may lead us to a safer Pakistan. We must remember that this situation is reversal of what we were 8/10 years ago when we used to wait for a PTCL line for months. So these delays are due to problems created by ourselve.

On other hands, sales of cellular connections may further go down, which are already witnessing a decline in recent months. Even bangladesh defeated us in Cellular SIM’s sale in June 2008. It merits mentioning that Pakistan added

Well in countries like UK address verification steps are already being used and are very successful. I agree to Mr. Aamir Atta that it is a good step taken by the Govt. Now let us see how it will be implemented in a true spirit.