Over 14M SIM cards now registered — NTC

The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) said Friday over 14 million subscriber identity modules (SIMs) have been registered with their respective service providers as of January 4, 2023, over a week since the SIM registration process began late last month.

The SIM registration update posted on the NTC’s website showed that a total of 14,050,125 SIM are already registered.

At a press briefing, NTC officer-in-charge Ella Blanca Lopez said the number of registered SIM represents 8.31% of the about 170 million SIM cards all over the country.

Broken down, Smart Communications Inc. recorded the highest number with 6,713,632 SIMs registered.

Globe Telecom Inc. followed with 6,135,596 SIMs registered.

DITO Telecommunity Corp., meanwhile, registered 1,200,897 SIMs.

“As far as the NTC is concerned, we are satisfied at how the telcos are handling the SIM registration as well as the enhancements on the system after the first few days of the registration,” Lopez said.

The NTC officer-in-charge also welcomed the commitment of telcos to implement improvements and refinements to their SIM registration process for ease of use of mobile subscribers.

SIM registration is pursuant to the Republic Act (RA) 11934 or the Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) Registration Act, which aims to regulate the issuance and use of SIMs, which are essential in operating mobile devices like mobile phones and pocket Wi-Fis.

The law is expected to suppress the spread of spam texts and scams using mobile devices.

The registration of SIM may be done online through the websites or applications launched by telecommunications companies. — Ted Cordero/RSJ, GMA Integrated News