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Shopkeepers protest cap on cellphone numbers
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Owners of small cellular shops protest in Malang on Monday against a Communications and Information Ministry regulation limiting ownership of cellular phone numbers to three per person. They say the rule has killed their business, which relies on selling new SIM cards for cheap internet data packages. (JP/Aman Rochman)
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undreds of cellphone shop owners took to the streets in Pekanbaru, Riau, and in Malang, East Java, to protest a new regulation restricting ownership of cellphone numbers to three per person, which they say has killed off their livelihood.
They said the regulation would ruin small businesses and benefit only cellular shops with big capital. The Indonesia Cellular Trade Association (KNCI) said Monday in Malang that the regulation had decreased their income to 80 percent.
The protesters in Pekanbaru brought mock-up coffins to symbolize the death of their businesses.
Protest coordinator Yudi Try said they were not opposed to another new rule in the same regulation, which requires people to register their numbers with the government, but they objected to the three SIM cards limitation. “The limitation has affected us, small traders who sell SIM cards on the street sides,” he said.
Small cellular shops are omnipresent. They open their service with only a small showcase or even relying on word of mouth in the neighborhood. They say it is the purchase of new SIM cards, not prepaid phone credit, that contributes most to their sales.
Given tight competition in the market, cellular providers are in a discount war for internet data packages, especially for first-time users. Consumers often use dual-SIM card phones, keeping one SIM card for their main number but often replacing the second one to take advantage of discounted prices for new numbers.
The Communications and Information Ministry issued the ministerial regulation late last year, allowing only three prepaid cellular numbers per citizenship identity number (NIK). The government argued the regulation was necessary to protect consumers from crimes committed via cellular phones and to prevent their numbers from being misused.
The government required all cellular number owners to register the numbers along with their citizenship identity. The deadline passed on Feb. 28.
KNCI in Malang claimed in that city alone, some 28,000 workers depended on the trade.
They had been protesting against the regulation since November last year, Zulham Mubarak of KNCI Malang said.
The KNCI demanded that the government revoke the limitation. (evi)
