NTC not going for 100% SIM card registration

TELECOM regulator National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) disclosed that it is not targeting a 100-percent SIM registration of the country’s mobile users, as the deadline for registration nears.

NTC Deputy Commissioner John Paulo Salvahan cited the experiences of other countries, where an average registration only reaches 70 percent and the rest of unregistered SIMs get deactivated, ABS-CBN News reported.

“We are not looking at 100 percent registration, most likely ‘yung ibang SIMs diyan, hindi na ire-register, either one reason or another,” Salvahan, quoted by ABS-CBN News, said.

Salvahan said as of April 20, around 75.5 million SIMs or 45 percent of the total number of active SIMs are currently registered. The NTC earlier said there are 168.9 million total active SIMs in the country.

The government earlier said unregistered SIMs will be automatically deactivated. However, the SIMs can be reactivated if appealed within five days.

According to the regulator, the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of the SIM Registration

Act, however, does not provide a mechanism on how this would be done and what grounds will be considered for reactivation.

Earlier, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) said there was so far no extension of the April 26 SIM registration deadline amid requests from telco firms.

Trade Secretary Alfredo Pascual had said he supports calls to extend the SIM registration, as this would help in the country’s shift to digital payments.

Globe, Smart and DITO earlier cited the lack of valid IDs as one of the main reasons why many telco subscribers are not able to register their SIMs. Subscribers in remote areas in the provinces are also having problems registering because of weak internet signals.