Telecommunication operators in Malaysia are immune to fines and summons, how else can you explain the serial fines these guys keep paying to MCMC (regulatory body) every three months. Just 2 months back, LiveatPC.com wrote a piece on the fines the operators are subject to on regulatory guidelines stipulated by the government, and here the go again committing the same offence.
On the latest incident, MCMC has issued five compounds amounting to RM60,000 to three service provider companies, two Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNO) and one broadcaster for non-compliance with the Mandatory Standard on quality of service, which basically means they fell short on their promise.
For this, one compound amounting RM20,000 was issued to Celcom Axiata Berhad, whilst one compound each amounting to RM10,000 was issued to Red One Network, DiGi Telecommunications, Merchantrade Asia and Husa Network respectively.
Concurrently, 12 compounds amounting to RM 600,000.00 were issued due to non-compliance of failure to verify end-user’s information during the registration of the prepaid sim card. While this can be attributed to the dealers not following the operators commands, but surely there should be strict checks made by the telco to ensure these vendors adhere to the policy. With militant criminals and sex offenders on the rise, these information could pose vital for authorities to track offenders and bring to justice. The lax attitude from networks operators is not helping the cause, maybe the fines are too insignificant, maybe they don’t realise the importance of it all. the Two compounds were issued to Maxis totalling RM 100,000.00, five compounds to DiGi totaling RM 250,000.00 and five compounds to Celcom totaling RM 250,000.00, chicken feed to company’s that report billions in revenue every quarter.
MCMC needs to be more aggressive and give these operators sterner warnings as the summons have been going on since the regulation was first enacted. There should be no loop-hole for criminals to escape, we have too many already!
