The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) on Wednesday said the various telecommunications carriers are all set to deactivate unregistered subscriber identity modules or SIM cards by 31 July as mandated by law.
The agency reiterated there will no longer be any extension in the deadline to register SIM cards.
It was recalled the government previously extended the original deadline of 26 April this year by another 90 days as allowed under the SIM Registration Act to give millions of users with still unregistered SIMs to comply and register.
“Failure to register SIMs by 11:59PM (Philippine Standard Time) of 25 July will result in the deactivation of telecommunication and mobile data services, including social media access, except for the purpose of having these unregistered SIMs reactivated, but only up to July 30,” the NTC said.
It added that access to online banking and other online financial transaction/facility shall also be deactivated.
“By July 31, all unregistered SIMs will be permanently deactivated and can no longer be reactivated/registered,” the agency reiterated.
Data from NTC show the number of successful SIM registration total 105.9 million, representing 63 percent of the total number of reported active SIM subscribers as of December 2022.
“Such number is well within the target of between 100 million to 110 million registered SIMs come deadline, especially considering the report from the public telecommunication entities that almost all of their SIMs with active users have already registered,” the NTC said.
Of the 105.9 million successful SIM registration, Smart has 50.0 million, Globe has 48.4 million and Dito has 7.5 million.
