(Business in Cameroon) - The Cameroonian subsidiary of the South African telecoms firm, MTN International, recently deactivated 12,000 unregistered chips, we learn from sources within the company, who however specified that the chips taken out of service had been inactive for a long time.
The deactivation of these chips, ordered by the national telecoms regulator in case of non-identification of the users, comes a few weeks to the deadline (end June 2016) given by MTN Cameroun to its subscribers to confirm their registration. This, after the publication of the government decree dated 3 September 2015 giving mobile operators new directions in terms of user registration. According to the Telecoms Regulatory Agency (ART), over the 2014-2015 period, mobile operators operating in Cameroon had to suspend 6 million phone chips deemed “suspicious”.
Ongoing registration campaigns for mobile subscribers come in a context marked by the terrorist attacks committed the Nigerian Islamist sect Boko Haram in Cameroon, attacks in which mobile telephones were sometimes used to activate the explosives carried by the kamikazes. At the same time, we learn from experts, Cameroon is facing an increase in Sim-box frauds, which lead to important losses for the mobile operators and the public Treasury.
BRM