Published on May 05, 2005

The government has asked mobile-phone firms to block calls made by prepaid phone users who travel to the four southernmost provinces after May 15 if they fail to register their SIM cards by that date.

Kanawat Wasinsangworn, vice minister of information and communications technology, said yesterday that the proposal had been made by Deputy Prime Minister Chaturon Chaisang and sent to the ICT Ministry.

Kanawat informed mobile-phone operators about the proposal yesterday in a meeting on the government’s attempts to control the use of the prepaid phones as a means of detonating bombs in the pro-vinces of Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat and a border area of Songkhla.

Chaturon also asked mobile-phone companies to block all calls by residents of the four provinces who are prepaid phone users and who fail to provide their identification to handset shops by the May 15 deadline.

There are about 22 million prepaid phone users, of which 100,000 are in the four southern provinces.

All the mobile-phone companies’ representatives at the meeting quickly objected to the proposal, citing technical difficulties.

Kanawat said stakeholders would convene again on Friday to see if the proposal could be made technically possible.

A telecom engineer who asked for anonymity said the idea was technically possible, but it would take time to adjust the operators’ network systems to support the measure.

From next Tuesday, anybody who wants to open a prepaid account must show an ID in accordance with a government order.

Telecom Reporters

The Nation

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