NTA bans WHO mobile VAS

KATHMANDU, AUG 6--The Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA) has banned a SMS value added service (VAS) called “who” which provides name of mobile users upon sending a SMS in 6622. The authority said that the service was launched without its permission and hurt the individuals’ right.

On Tuesday, the NTA directed four telecom companies—Ncell, Nepal Telecom, United Telecom Limited (UTL) and Smart Telecom to stop providing the SMS VAS service from their network. The service was provided by THT Live, a VAS provider.

It enables customer sending SMS in 6622 typing “who” space “mobile no” to find the name of the mobile owner.

“Since the service distributes the personal information to SMS sender, it is against the personal freedom and create security threat,” said Arjun Ghimire, deputy director of the NTA. He added that the service provider had not taken the permission of the NTA for the service and tariffs to be charged. The service charges Rs 2 excluding tax from the customers per SMS.

THT Live had promoted the VAS service stating that customers using mobile service of Ncell, NT, UTL and Smart could avail the “who” VAS service. However, Ncell said that the VAS provider had launched the service without consultation and approval from it. “6622 has been blocked from our SMS centre as it is against customer privacy,” said Sanju Koirala, corporate communications director of Ncell.

After the direction of the NTA, NT also stopped the VAS service on Wednesday afternoon. “We have stopped the SMS service in 6622 short code,” said Surendra Prasad Thike, deputy managing director of the NT. He added that they were trying to find out how the service became possible in their network.

This is the first time the government moved strict in any VAS amid increasing number of different VAS services. An official at the NTA said that the THT Live had introduced the “who” service based on the latter’s tie up with truecallar dot com. “The website normally maintains database of the mobile numbers and names of the users worldwide from the online forms filed in the internet and other documents having customer information,” the official added.

With the number of mobile users increasing significantly, a number of VAS services are being offered by telecom companies and third party VAS service providers. Despite the growth in services, the government has failed to effectively regulate VAS in the absence of a standard guideline to check if the services and their charges are reasonable.