Telcos bar 12m phone lines in 3 days, NCC insists deadline won’t be extended
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Some 12 million mobile phone subscribers, most of them running on MTN, have lamented their disconnection from calls and internet services since Wednesday mainly because of failure to link their National Identity Numbers (NINs) with their Subscriber Identity Modules (SIMs).
A technical glitch in MTN not connected to NIN/SIM hassle has added to the travail.
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) had directed telecommunication companies (telcos) to bar such lines after Wednesday February 28 but some subscribers complained of having been disconnected since 2pm that very day.
Phone disconnection comes at a huge social and economic cost to both telcos and subscribers.
In a separate incident, MTN the market leader blamed its own additional outage on fibre cuts, and confirmed it suffered a glitch that has affected its services across the country.
MTN issued a statement to say there was no network for calls as of 8pm on Wednesday “due to a major service outage caused by multiple fibre cuts, affecting voice and data services.
“Our engineers are working hard to resolve with services gradually being restored in some areas.
“We apologise for the inconvenience and ask for your patience and understanding as the team works to restore full service as soon as possible.”
The NCC on Thursday ruled out an extension of the February 28 deadline for linking NIN with SIM, which necessitated telcos having to deactivate 12 million lines not linked by their owners.
NCC Public Affairs Directors Reuben Mouka confirmed the report and reiterated the stance of the NCC.
“We already issued a public notice in this regard and all the information. If there was an extension, NCC would have communicated that. But as far as I know, there is no extension,” he said.
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