The government will start deactivating SIM that haven’t been registered on July 26. They say they’ve given people enough time to register their SIM card.
“No extension because July 25 is a hard deadline.” Ivan John Uy, secretary of the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), said yesterday, “Those who have yet to register by 12:01 a.m. of July 26, they will no longer be able to access connectivity services.”
If a subscriber doesn’t sign up before the deadline, they won’t be able to make calls, use data, or send texts until they restart their SIM.
When a SIM is deactivated, the owner has five days to register and turn it back on. If they don’t, the telco company will shut down the mobile number for good.
Some of the telcos’ data shows that they have registered 99 percent of their subscribers who actively buy a load or pay for a postpaid plan.
He said that it is now safe to assume that unlisted phone numbers belong to scammers and telemarketers who only use them once.
The SIM Registration Act, or Republic Act 11934, requires all customers to register their SIM cards. The goal of this law is to stop digital fraud, especially text message scams.
What You Need to Know About the SIM Card Registration Law
The government was supposed to stop registering SIM cards on April 26, but this was pushed back to July 25 after the telco industry asked them to focus on getting subscribers in areas with weak or no cell service.
Globe Telecom Inc. and Smart Communications Inc. both think that customers had enough time to register their SIM cards.
Globe, for example, has made it possible to register a SIM card through the e-wallet app GCash to make the process easier for everyone.
From what we know, telco companies have covered 62%, or 104.33 million, of the 168 million SIM cards in the Philippines.
Smart has the most subscribers, with 74 percent, followed by Globe with 55 percent and Dito Telecommunity Corp. with 50 percent.
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