PTA Slaps Fine on Telenor Pakistan on not Maintaining Proper SIMs Sales Record

Telenor Pakistan is yet again under fire and this time for not maintaining and not the provision of data regarding sales of SIMs to the regulator. Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) in determination issued on 01^st February 2022 has imposed Rs One Million fine on Telenor Pakistan to be paid within 15 days. PTA in the determination has said that the mobile network operator could not maintain and provide the requisite information in the manner required by applicable regulatory laws/procedure time being in force.

PTA Slaps Fine on Telenor Pakistan on not Maintaining Proper SIMs Sales Record

The determination issued by PTA further says that it had asked the mobile network operator to provide the sale channel data to check the maintenance of data as per applicable regulatory laws. After examining the data provided by Telenor, PTA has found out the following details violating the laws

• Addresses/marked locations of 5023 sale channels have not been provided/marked.
• Transaction data provided by the licensee from (07th June 2020 to 7th July 2020) contained 255 unregistered retailers involved in the issuance of SIMs.
• 405 Names against Unique IDs of the sale channels were not provided

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During the course of hearing at PTA regarding the allegations, Telenor Pakistan submitted a detailed response in January 2021 with the main following averments:

• About Unidentified addresses of 5,023 locations, the licensee prayed that keeping in view the demographic and socioeconomic fabric of the society, the people instead of writing down the exact address, usually correlate the same with some landmark. In addition, the licensee also stressed upon the requests earlier made to allow the implementation of retailer’s verification and login through BVS which the licensee feels is the logical remedy available in this regard.
• In respect to data provided by the licensee containing 255 unregistered retailers involved in the issuance of SIMs, the licensee asserted that the data in question does not pertain to retailers
• About the non-provision of 405 Names against Unique IDs of sale channel involved in the issuance of SIMs, the licensee articulated that less than 1% of the total retailers are being highlighted as not having the names against their assigned unique sale channel IDs. The licensee expressed that handling detailed data fields against a single retailer, and then managing the manual data set against the entire base retailer is not an easy task. The licensee further explained that it has deployed the retailers BVS verification and login functionally, the same will not only help to eliminate the above challenges but also assist to address the real pinpoint of identification of the exact person (retailer/handler) who is performing the SIM sale activity from any BVS device.

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Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) in its Order issued said that the mobile network operator could not maintain and provide the requisite information in the manner required by applicable regulatory laws/procedure and imposed Rs. One Million fine on Telenor Pakistan to be paid within 15 days. PTA in the determination was further directed to provide the remaining data within fifteen days.