Following the expiration of the deadline for SIM registration on October 15, 2022, thousands of Kenyans’ cell phone services have been suspended.
Leading telecom provider Safaricom issued messages to the impacted customers requesting that they come into one of its mobile shops to have the blocked connections unblocked.
Your line has been suspended while we update your registration, dear customer. To change your ID, go to the closest M-Pesa or Safaricom store, the business advised one of its customers in a message.
“This morning, I got the suspension message (Sunday, October 16). I am unable to send messages, access data bundles, or make M-Pesa transactions. However, if someone calls me, the phone would be answered.
Telkom and Airtel customers were also impacted.
The deadline for SIM registration was established at October 15, 2022 by the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA).
The government will now be able to sift out fraudsters and criminals who use unregistered cell phone lines to do harm, claims the CA.
The agency explained on Friday, October 14, stating that registration is a continuous process and cannot be limited to a set date, and that users whose cell phone lines would be blocked after the registration deadline would still be able to reactivate them in later days.
Operators won’t halt the exercise because of the deadline of October 15, 2022. Liston Kirui, CA’s Telecoms Licensing and Compliance Assistant Director, stated, “We anticipate them to continue with the procedure.
The Kenyan Communications Authority originally set the deadline for SIM card registration as April 15, 2022, but later changed it to October 15.
In an effort to stop fraudulently registered lines in Kenya, the CA reported that more than 124,000 SIM cards had been cancelled as of June this year.
Prior to the deadline of October 15, 2022, data showed that around 14 million mobile phone lines across all mobile networks in the nation had not yet been properly registered.
The precise number of Kenyans who are impacted by the suspension is unknown, according to no official data that has been available.
According to the CA, approximately 59 million mobile phone devices were linked to Kenya’s various mobile networks as of September 2021.
According to the figures, which were based on returns from mobile carriers, there were 67.9% feature phones and 53.4% smartphones in use, with 33 million feature phones and 26 million smartphones, respectively.
The survey, which spanned July to September 2021, also revealed that there were 64.9 million active mobile money subscriptions.
