The Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) has extended its latest SIM registration process by two weeks to give users more time to validate their accounts. The watchdog had ordered all mobile customers to re-register their details by 1 May, to link SIM cards in their name to their national identity number (NIN). Following complaints from users, however, the deadline has been pushed back to 15 May, The Observer reports.
Uganda has gone through several rounds of mobile user registration, with the latest phase aimed at ensuring that all SIMs are properly linked to the correct NIN. The country’s largest cellco by subscribers, MTN Uganda, describes the process as ‘profile modification’, while its main rival Airtel is calling it ‘SIM card validation’. There were around 24.1 million cellular subscribers in Uganda at the end of 2018, according to TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database, with MTN and Airtel accounting for more than 89% of users between them.