Pakistan's regulators have set a 90-day deadline for re-verifying SIMs in operation via a new biometric system, after which the telecom industry fears that tens of millions of active SIMs will be blocked.
The 90-day verification process commenced yesterday using the Biometric Verification System (BVS), The News Internationalreported.
The government ordered the verification process based on a plan to crack down on terrorism in the nation. At the end of the period, all SIMs that have not been verified will be blocked.
The verification policy applies to both pre-paid and post-paid SIMs. The verification period ends on April 13, and unverified SIMs will be blocked from April 14.
Each customer will be allocated a unique identification number, and will be able to register up to five SIMs to that number using biometric authentication.
Pakistan's mobile operators had been seeking an 11-month deadline to complete the verification process, and still expected around 40 million active SIMs to be blocked given this time-frame. A 90-day deadline could lead to even more SIMs being blocked.
One senior telecom official told the paper that up to 50 million SIMs may end up blocked, leading to a revenue hit of around 10 billion Pakistani rupees ($99.3 million) per month.