- The Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) had set October 15, 2022, as the deadline for SIM registration.
- Yesterday, the regulator said subscribers whose lines have been deactivated will be given a chance to re-register.
Image: FILE
Thousands of Kenyans’ cell phone lines were on Sunday morning suspended after October 15, 2022, the SIM registration deadline elapsed.
Although the Communication Authority had not given the actual figures of the number of lines deactivated, the majority of users missed the deadline if the number of complaints on social media is anything to go by.
By Friday, two days before the deadline, 12.5 million users had not registered their lines. Only 40 per cent of Telkom users had registered Airtel 78 per cent while 91 per cent of Safaricom's users had complied.
On Sunday, prominent people whose lines were deactivated took to Twitter to lament, with some threatening to take legal action against network providers.
Lawyer Ahmednasir Abdullahi was not amused that his Safaricom line of 25 years had been blocked.
''Safaricom unceremoniously switched off my line this Sunday. Tomorrow, I will move to their competitor and will never use their service again,'' he twitted.
His line has since been activated as he indicated in the subsequent tweet.
Senior Counsel Charles Kanjama said he was equally disappointed with Safaricom and threatened a class action suit on behalf of aggrieved and registered M-Pesa and Safaricom subscribers for breach of contract.
''We’ll seek damages of $50 (Sh6,050) per subscriber per day,'' he twitted.
Others caught flat-footed include Makueni Governor Mutula Kilonzo Jr, Wajir Woman Representative Fatuma Gedi and Nandi Senator Samson Cherargei.
The Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) had set October 15, 2022, as the deadline for SIM registration.
According to the CA, the move will allow the government to weed out fraudsters and criminals using unregistered cell phone lines to cause harm.
On Friday, October 14, the agency clarified that subscribers whose cell phone lines would be blocked after the registration deadline would still be able to reactivate them in subsequent days, saying registration was a continuous process that can’t be limited to a specific date.
“Operators are not going to stop the exercise because of the October 15, 2022 deadline. We expect them to continue with the process,” said CA's Telecoms Licensing and Compliance Assistant Director Liston Kirui.
The Communications Authority of Kenya had earlier set the SIM card registration deadline as April 15, 2022, but revised it to October 15.
In June this year, the CA said more than 124,000 SIM cards had been deactivated in efforts to curb illegally registered lines in Kenya.
The CA said that as of September 2021, about 59 million mobile phone devices were connected to the different mobile networks in Kenya.
The statistics, which were based on returns by mobile operators, showed that out of the number, 33 million were feature phones while 26 million were smartphones, putting the penetration levels at 67.9 per cent and 53.4 per cent respectively.
The report, which covered July to September 2021, also showed that the number of mobile money subscriptions stood at 64.9 million.
Yesterday, the regulator said subscribers whose lines have been deactivated will be given a chance to re-register.