BANGKOK, 22 Jan 2015, The National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) yesterday announced that all prepaid Subscriber Identity Module or SIM cards must be registered by July 31st. Failure to do so will result in the termination of services.
The announcement was made after a meeting held yesterday between the NBTC and the country’s 5 mobile phone service providers: Advanced Info Service, DTAC, True Move, TOT and CAT Telecom.
According to the NBTC, a public hearing will be organized to gauge the people’s reaction; however, the agency expects the regulation to take effect within 6 months.
According to NBTC Secretary-General, Thakorn Tantasit, the objective is to protect the public from various scams given swindlers using unregistered SIM cards are virtually impossible to be tracked down. Another major reason is national security, referring to the cases of perpetrators of violence using unregistered SIM cards for illegal purposes.
To register their SIM cards, the owners must bring their identification cards to their respective service providers, the Secretary-General said, adding that the NBTC would later add Krung Thai Bank and the outlets of giant convenient store chain 7-Eleven to the list of registration venues.
Unregistered SIM cards will no longer function after July 31st.
Currently, there are 90 million active SIM cards in use, with only a fraction of them– 1.6 million– registered.
