Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has started working on the free sale of the SIM and the authority concerned is going to stop the free sale of the SIMs from different mobile phone companies. Dr. Ismail Shah, who is the chairman of PTA, gave information to the standing committee of Senate on Information Technology and Telecom.

It is pointed that the mobile phone companies lodge their promotion schemes among their clients and they start provision of free SIMs to the clients. The chairman of PTA pointed out during the meeting with the standing committee of Senate that the SIMs will be sold to the clients through the biometric verification system but some companies continued sale of free SIMs to their clients. These free SIMs are provided to the clients with the free balance of Rs.50 to Rs.75.

Senator Talha Mahmood, who chaired the committee, shared his deep concern over the free provision of the SIMs to the clients and chairman of PTA responded that these mobile phone companies provide the free SIMs to the clients to add their subscriptions. It is pointed out by the chairman of PTA that the mobile phone companies have to bear the loss of Rs.200 on sale of each SIM card. The chairman informed that the customers discard their free SIM cards after using the balance free of charge.

PTA to Stopping Sale of Free SIMs in Pakistan

PTA announced its policy few months earlier that no SIM cards will be sold without their biometric verification system and one CNIC holder can get up to 5 SIMs at a time on his/her name.

When the users use their free SIM and discard them after using of entire free balance present in their free SIM, they remove the ownership of their SIMs before getting the new one. So the number of SIMs registered against their name and one CNIC, total limit of the SIMs does not exceed to the allowed 5 SIMs per CNIC.

The mobile phone companies should retain their customers and recover the part of the costs and they should charge a fee when the SIMs are removed from the name and CNIC of their customers.