Nigeria’s Communications Commission has fined mobile phone firm MTN Nigeria $5bn, for failing to disconnect subscribers with unregistered sim cards bought before January 2012.
The country’s telecommunications regulator slapped the giant telephone network provider with the huge fine for failing to deal with the unregistered subscribers.
Anyone who has bought a sim card in Nigeria since 2012 has had to register it under their name as required by the law.
Phone companies were ordered to register their existing customers’ sim cards, but MTN, Nigeria’s largest communications firm failed to do.
This fine is the largest in the history of the telecom infringements in Nigeria, and may redefine the relationships between telecommunications operators and the regulator.
Nigeria has the highest number of mobile subscribers in Africa. Nigerians however, according to the BBC, continue to complain about poor services from mobile network operators and blame the regulators for not doing enough to solve the problem.
