Spice deactivates 58% of pre-paid subscribers

BANGALORE/NEW DELHI: Spice Telecom has been forced to deactivate about 58% of its total pre-paid subscriber base for whom the company had undertaken the verification process. Ditto to other smaller players such as BPL Mobile and Aircel Cellular, who have deactivated a considerable number of their pre-paid subscribers — 45.5% and 11.7%, respectively, so far — even as the verification process continues for all companies.

Consider the figures: Spice Telecom has till March 2, 2007 completed the verification process for 1.16 million of its 1.5 million pre-paid subscribers, and has deactivated 6,76,583. This number may climb further since 21.41% of its pre-paid subscriber base still to be verified. Similarly, Aircel has completed the verification process for 99.71% of its 2.6 million pre-paid users and has disconnected over three lakh users while BPL, which has finished the authentication process for 89.59% of its 9,50,000 customers, has already de-activated 3,90,000.


Last year, DoT had set a deadline of March 31, 2007, for all companies to complete authentication of their entire customer base, especially the pre-paid segment. Operators were asked to submit verification reports for all connections issued prior to May end, 2006, and were also directed to follow the stringent verification norms for all connections issued after this date.

“There is nothing we can do about losing subscribers. We will have to follow the government regulations otherwise we stand to lose crores. So we are left with no alternative,” Spice Telecom CEO Prakash Nanani told ET. “However, our subscribers are given a 90 days period during which they can get back to us with verified documents, and we re-activate their subscription. Many of our subscribers have come back to us and we expect this trend to continue,” he added. Spice has nearly completed the verification of its Spice Karnataka circle. “Retailers and dealers may not have verified documents and it is likely that this has resulted in de-activation. Also, people keep shifting residences and since proof of address is essential, this change also leads to de-activation,” Mr Nanani added.

On the other hand, Aircel’s group chief executive officer Jagdish Kini is of the view that company’s revenues would not be hit on account of the de-activation. “Most of these may have been fraudulent and therefore their usage is likely to be very low. So our revenues will not be hit,” he said. Mr Kini also added that the process has helped “clean up the system”.