In September 2015 new registration rules by CA were issued to mobile service providers requiring them to ensure that all mobile service subscribers are properly registered within 90 days, and as of today, they have 27 days left to comply. The mobile service providers didn’t act on the new registration guideline until about two weeks ago when they started informing their customers to visit their respective shops to ensure that they are properly registered.
The new registration rules by CA require that a subscriber’s details matches with the details contained in the Population Registration System (IPS), and according to a similar story by Business Daily, all Orange Kenya subscribers have their data perfected matched with the data in the IPS whereas only 1.3 percent of 23.3 million Safaricom subscribers have their data mismatched. Airtel hasn’t revealed the extent of mismatch in their database, but I can bet close to 100 percent of their subscribers were improperly registered.
I am certain that almost all of the 6.8 million Airtel subscribers were improperly registered because I have two Airtel numbers, one registered before September 2015 and the second registered hardly two weeks ago. According to a warning message by Airtel to improperly registered numbers, both of those numbers require re-registration at Airtel’s nearby shop on or before December 5, 2015. This is solidified by Airtel’s reply to a tweet that enquired about more details in regards to the new registration rules by CA. The reply read:
@femmemoran The CAK has issued a new directive that requires all subscribers to register afresh.Visit our shop and you will be assisted.
— Airtel Kenya (@AIRTEL_KE) November 9, 2015
The way Airtel has managed to implement the guideline is indeed wanting. On November 9, 2015 Airtel sent a tweet informing subscribers (see below) of the new registration rules by CA, yet by the time I registered my new line either on 12th or 13th November they had not implemented the new regulations at their shops, forcing me to now plan to re-register that new line on or before December 5, 2015.
Hawayuni! (CAK) has set out new regulations for customer registration which will apply to both existing and new customers. ^Caro — Airtel Kenya (@AIRTEL_KE) November 9, 2015
The point worth noting is that we asked Airtel, as a reply to the tweet above, to provide a deadline and they responded as follows:
@kachwanya Before February 2016.^Jamo
— Airtel Kenya (@AIRTEL_KE) November 9, 2015
Thousands of Airtel subscribers who still believe that February is the deadline for registration a fresh risk having their numbers deactivated.
What surprises me most is how Safaricom with over 23.3 million subscribers was able to properly register over 23 million customers, Orange was able to properly register its entire 4 million subscribers, yet Airtel could not handle the 6.8 million customers – not before the new guidelines were issued, and not after they had received the warning from CA over deactivation of improperly registered numbers.