Late rush overwhelms operators

Telecom operators had to deal with a last-minute rush of mobile phone users yesterday, with the deadline for biometric SIM re-registration expiring today.

Meanwhile, State Minister for Posts and Telecommunications Tarana Halim hinted that the deadline might be extended, saying an announcement on the matter would be made today.

Mobile operators alleged that they had been facing serious problems in getting connected to the national identity database (NID) since Thursday evening, which slowed down the re-registration process.

Things got worse yesterday as it took 10-12 minutes to get connected to the NID database for matching fingerprints of SIM card holders, said a number of operators.

On condition of anonymity, a customer care manager of state-run mobile operator Teletalk in Farmgate area said they were facing the same problem.

This correspondent visited several customer care centres in the capital where the operators said the re-registration process was a lot slower than usual.

“We are facing a rush of customers,” said Ekram Kabir, vice president for communications and corporate responsibility at Robi.

A large number of them went back, finding the re-registration process slow, he said.

Ekram said they hoped to re-register at least five lakh SIMs from yesterday morning to noon but could re-register only 3.5 lakh.

Asked, Brig Gen Sultanuzzaman Md Saleh Uddin, director general of Election Commission's NID wing, said they received complaints from mobile operators that the NID server was down, but they found no problem in the server.

“One of our teams is working with the operators, and if any problem arises, it will solve that,” he said.

Tarana also ruled out the mobile operators' complaints about the NID database problem.

Talking to reporters after visiting a Grameenphone centre in the city, the state minister said she went to the NID database centre at the Election Commission around 4:00pm and found no problem there.

She expressed dissatisfaction with “the slow pace of the re-registration process”.

While visiting customer care points in the capital and Narayanganj, she asked mobile users whether the deadline for re-registration should be extended. And most of them spoke in favour of an extension.

“We are very respectful of the wishes of the general people, and we will not do anything that will cause sufferings for them.

“What I can say is that a cut-off date should be there and no process can run for an indefinite period.

“But at the same time, we need to think about public sufferings,” Tarana said in response to a query on deadline extension.

Of the 13.09 crore active SIMs, 8.38 crore had been re-registered as of Thursday.

Mobile operators launched the re-registration process on December 16 last year.

Last week, three mobile operators -- Grameenphone, Banglalink and Robi -- sought time extension for completing the process.