Government Proposes New Verification Rules For Telecom

[anshu_s09 18]

The Government has proposed a new verification model that will require telecom operators to mail SIM cards and a personal identification number (PIN) separately to customers seeking a new mobile connection. This is similar to the model that is adopted by Banks to deliver Credit/Debit cards PIN to their customers. Under the new proposal, mobile phone companies will have to re-verify the documents of the 700-million mobile connections in the country. The proposal also demands the cancellation of mobile-connections of those customers who have changed their addresses but failed to report the operator about the same. What is more ludicrous is that if the new rules are implemented, consumers across the country will not be able to furnish electricity bills, caste/domicile certificates, photo-IDs attested by MPs/MLAs and Group A officers and student IDs from recognized institutions to buy new cell phone connections.

This proposal has left the Telcos baffled who have now decided to approach telecom ministry as well as the telecom regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

Implications of the new verification model

The intention behind the new verification process is genuine. India has some real security concerns and we all know that the existing process of seeking a new mobile connection and verification thereafter has too many loopholes to be desired. So it makes perfect sense to tighten the verification process. But implementation is as important as the intent. And I am not sure whether the proposed verification norms by the Government have the true potential to address our Security concerns without inhibiting the current growth exhibited by the Telecom sector.

India is one of the fastest growing cellular markets in the world. Despite this, users enjoy the lowest tariffs in world, thanks to the cut-throat competition amongst the operators. But the new proposal will increase the operational costs and the Telecom operators would be bound to pass it to the customers. This will kill the current pricing model and hence the benefits enjoyed by the customers. It can also have adverse impact on the Mobile Number Portability (MNP) scheme which is due to be implemented soon.

The proposed verification scheme will also delay the process of new registrations. Gone are those days when we had to wait for days to get a new phone connection. But the new proposal if implemented would involve the SIM to be mailed, thus causing unnecessary delay. And the further we go out of the main cities the worse the problem will be. It will certainly slow down the telecom sectors pace of growth and we cant afford that.

The growth of telecom sector is fundamental to the growth of our economy. But rolling back the gains which the telecom sector currently enjoys is no answer to our Security woes. True that Security should be our prime most concern but we will have to be more prudent in dealing with that. What we need is better policing, better coordination, better intelligent gathering and less corruption. Lets see if we are smart enough to devise a new way to address the security issue without compromising on the growth.

Source:-

http://businesstoday.intoday.in/bt/story/9645/1/telcos-to-approach-govt-and-dot-on-new-verification-rules.html

http://www.watblog.com/2010/10/19/govt-proposes-new-verification-rules-for-telecom-boost-or-bane/

Edited October 20, 2010 by anshu_s09

[rajanmehta 4,056]

[SUDYEcaZ 67]

It might be a good move by the government...

AS it will help to

1. Stop fake activations by companies

2. Stop activations in name of fake documents

3. smooth verification process,

4. Subscriber like us might not be asked for documents again and again

[kalpeshaparmar 66]

I agree with Government...........

as more than half of the customers are illegal if we look of over all benefit

No more blank calls.....(even to girl friends)

No more Disturbance by telecallers or thru SMS as nowadays they use prepaid cards

No more pressure on distributors to break cards on bogus names( 65,000 Idea nos in 1 person names.) Even i don't know how many connections are there in my name same for all of us.

Many more...........

wud write soon..........

[KumaarShah 143]

I would disagree with the knee jerk reaction by GoI and TRAI.

Just imagine that if you want to take a connection, and you have to wait endlessly for the courier or post guy to come and deliver the SIM to you etc. Just also imagine if you are out station somewhere and you need the connection urgently and would you be able to wait for so many days?

[csmart 472]

i think main problem is that Telcos are unable to keep track of pre paid customers. they simply do not have proof for prepaid customers. whenever govt ask them for proof, these cos will ask customers to provide or otherwise will disconnect the line.

in part got is also correct. for security reasons they have to do it. otherwise we ourself will say what govt was doing till such time..

[HetalDP 947]

Ok i am ready for this.

[faizone 15]

Its good... Atleast people will not keep changing numbers frequently cuz getting numbers will become a time-consuming process..

[M.S.Rao 64]

Yes. It's good. Different types of cheatings through phones, will come down drasticly.

[raccoon 53]

i think main problem is that Telcos are unable to keep track of pre paid customers. they simply do not have proof for prepaid customers. whenever govt ask them for proof, these cos will ask customers to provide or otherwise will disconnect the line.

in part got is also correct. for security reasons they have to do it. otherwise we ourself will say what govt was doing till such time..

If this is indeed the case, and if telcos are not maintaining documents as they should, be made to do this by the govt. What is the need to harass genuine subscribers and increase costs?

Its good... Atleast people will not keep changing numbers frequently cuz getting numbers will become a time-consuming process..

What is so wrong about changing numbers? In fact thats what keeps the competition alive. People who stick to their numbers till they are dragged to their graves don't contribute much to it. 

As for other nuisances like blank calls, there are other options - you can lodge a police complaint or use a phone that has a blacklisting function. Telcos an also offer this as a network feature, hopefully for free (I believe Voda does this, but its not free. But why should one pay for not being harassed?).

Instead, why not have address verification for pre-paid, similar to what is being done for post-paid? This will lead to some increased expense for the telcos, but IMO it will be much better than the proposed changes. 

Edited October 20, 2010 by raccoon

[kshah 452]

Good move. Necessary as most subscriber figures are inflated and there are preactivated non traceable SIMs available in market.

IMO, first thing TRAI should do is to ban all lifetime validity card. No SIM or connection should be valid more than few months.

Edited October 20, 2010 by kshah

[gmkarthikeyhan 2]

Good move.

[Shabz 8]

How will they verify the address if I give Voter id as id and address proof as in voter id the address is not complete same with electricity bill.

If by the mistake of government officials the spelling of my name is different in different document then I have to suffer as again the same government does not recognize it for taking new SIM connection.

Who will rectify such mistake of the government. If government officials work properly, we will not be harrassed in such a way

[Greatest 55]

This was really very much needed after all the 2g blah blahs, spectrum tussles, fake activations, terrorist links, etc..

I totally support this..

[Saurav 22]

Its a great move. Why do you want new connection? " OFFERS" MNP is going to be the solution.

All the new customers that are being added are fake. People are just purchasing connection for intial offer. I myself have few GSM numbers which I have used except for 1-2 days.

It has been recently reported that BSNL added Max Customers actual reason is Dealers gave free Connection with Rs 50 talktime. People purchased more than 3 connections in single turn.

I think all rimweb memebers are having more than 2 spare SIMs.

[Karthik R 246]

Getting a new SIM connection is a breeze now especially with the new operators - DOCOMO, Uninor and Reliance GSM. I know some Idea agents here who take copies of the address proof and the scan the photos of people (I am talking about 1000s!) who have given them for a single connection and activate multiple connection. When i asked them wtf? they answer gaily that they will break the SIM cards after two days and it is just to achieve the targets set to them. They get freebies like tv, ac, bike, etc.. for it. The end result - Idea is the market leader in Kerala with 5.5 million subscribers. Next case Uninor, the guy activated the SIM without getting ANY proof from me! (It was working as it should but dumped it two months later due to bad network). They got to scrutinize this.

[raccoon 53]

Seems like people are getting mixed up. Even if there are fake activations, esp. of the type described above by Karthik, its the telco's loss. It is they who should do something about these things, not the government. Government comes in the picture if those connections are used for illegal purposes. And IMHO that could be addressed by address verification.

[chitshar 25]

Well number of mobile connections out now is about 60 crores. The connections are about to be 80-90 crores in coming2-3 years and there is no way on this earth to verify that many connections. I am assuming that verifying means linking these connections with permanent address. Do 80 crore people in our country own a home? I dont think so. Firstly all telecom companies put together have so much lobbying power that they will not let government implement it easily. Even if they fail to stop it then they wont take interest in it and would find some way to work around it as their men have to do the verification as government does not have enough police manpower to do this. Next comes the corruption part as even if police or some similar agency were to do this they can easily be bribed(we all know how driving licence to passport can be made in no time if you spend some money). Lastly i read some news headline that govt wants simcards to be delivered as credit cards but the problem is number of credit cards in India=18.3 million and number of sim cards =650 million. And the thing is all this is done to prevent terrorists from using sim cards? when ak-47s to all kinds of drugs and what not is being smuggled to India then how tough would it be to get some foreign sim cards or satellite phones. where ever there is money rules are bent or broken and telecom companies will be bigger loosers then customers if this is strictly implemented and lets not forget all telecom companies put together are atleast worth 100 Billion dollars...(could be even more its just my guess).

[Karthik R 246]

Verifying 65 crore mobile subscribers is not impossible. Try the Unique ID plan of Govt. or the census - they supposedly reach out to all the 110 crore people! Address verification must be done but the other moves like resubmitting the documents, disqualifying certain documents are heavy on us and should not be pressed.

[santhoshavanoor 7]

proper verification required, but I don't know why they are sending the sim card and Pin number thru post. That is not good, if a visitor want to purchase a sim card on his arrival on any airport or seaport, he want to wait morethan 4 working days.

[ami1 237]

Completely useless and senseless red tape. Will solve exactly Zero problems.

Phones are just a means of communication. What's next - address verification if you want to shout something to your friend ?

If we keep reacting like this for every thing which can be misused by the bad guys then we'll soon be having verification before getting drinking water.

People out to do big illegal things won't go back just because of some such minor hassle.

So, thousands of employees and govt officers will waste time on this and neglect doing anything of real importance.

Essentially, just a ploy to get paid by Telcos to reduce the stringency.

[kalpeshaparmar 66]

Now about the cost extra which companies pays for not verifying customer properly

The talk of Department of telecom penalizing the Telcos for not following KYC norms or verification process has reached a new acme.

According to a report in Business Line : DoT has decided that operators will have to pay a penalty of Rs 50,000 per subscriber if they have more than 20 per cent of their user base without proper identity documents.

At present, operators pay only Rs 1,000 for every unverified mobile subscriber.

This is seen as a bid to address concerns raised by security agencies, and to further tighten the mobile subscriber verification norms.

Graded penalty system:

The operators would be liable to pay out more if they have a higher number of unverified subscribers.

So If a Telco has such percentage of unverified subscribers in a particular circle:

5% :penalty Rs.1000/subscriber.

5-10% :penalty Rs.5000/subscriber.

10-20%:penalty Rs.20000/subscriber.

<20%:penalty Rs.50000/subscriber.

This would further be followed by random checks every month by DoT’s vigilance officers to determine the extent of violation by the operators.

@hat does this mean to telcos:

In an environment where Indian telcos are adding more than 10 million subscribers a month this comes as a big jolt because these companies would eventually find it unmanageable to handle verification process for such a large numbe. Even if they go for outsourcing it would cost them very dearly and would definitely increase the cost of acquiring subscribers.

In the meantime it could come as a boon for many companies involved into verification processes and even for small BPO units because Telcos will definitely try to obey the new rules in order to avoid paying heavy penalties.

DoT seems to be doing the right thing by imposing hefty fines because these companies if they wanted could have obeyed the law by outsourcing verification process but they didn’t do it as they feared losing a lot of subscribers if they go for verification as those customers may not even be holding valid papers to obtain mobile connection.

These all are payments has to be made to DOT if not verified properly............

Trying to find exact amount paid by all these all the telcos....

And instead of courier it can be activated within 3 working days but after 100% verification only......

[kalpeshaparmar 66]

Look at the positive side also.........

ARPU would increase so would Average minutes usage would increase and If ARPU increases then there would be lower rates....

Due to less number of fake subscribers the network would be top class as network utilization wud be proper and company can give us better servies....

Eg. Every year Vodafone (Mumbai Circle) asks for documents of the old subscribers to remain in the system if not delivered the number is closed..........

Eg. Reliance GSM is worst network as they had given all the sim cards for free

[kesav 127]

Dear Admins,

Kindly move this topic to http://www.rimweb.in/forums/forum/49-indian-telecom-discussion/ folder

[raccoon 53]

Look at the positive side also.........

ARPU would increase so would Average minutes usage would increase and If ARPU increases then there would be lower rates....

Due to less number of fake subscribers the network would be top class as network utilization wud be proper and company can give us better servies....

Eg. Every year Vodafone (Mumbai Circle) asks for documents of the old subscribers to remain in the system if not delivered the number is closed..........

Eg. Reliance GSM is worst network as they had given all the sim cards for free

Inactive or unused SIMs would not pose any load on the network. Not a valid solution for network issues.