VietNamNet Bridge - The Ministry of Information and Communications is moving to keep tabs on pre-paid mobile phone subscribers by forcing them to record their information.

Nguyen Xuan Tru, deputy director of Ministry of Information and Communications’ (MIC) Telecom Department, said it would soon work out measures to enforce the regulations which took effect from the beginning of 2008.

“The measures will force pre-paid subscribers to go directly to transaction points to declare their information. Otherwise their service will be cut,” said Tru.

The Inspectorate Department is also asking the MIC for approval of new fines to prevent mobile SIM agents from declaring their information before selling to customers, instead of storing information to register with mobile operators which is illegal.

“We will add another regulation barring people from having more than five SIM cards,” said Tru. After conducting administrative fines, the Inspectorate Department will execute new and large-scale investigations on pre-paid subscriber management in the provinces.

“We target to basically complete pre-paid subscriber information collection by June next year and will review it again in the second half of next year,” said Le Nam Thang, deputy MIC minister. The MIC report said that Saigon Postel had stored all of its pre-paid information, MobiFone close to half and EVN Telecom around 70 per cent.

The MIC’s new measurements stem from subscriber information collected by authorised SIM card agents not meeting targets. MobiFone is reported to have 21 million subscribers with around 90 per cent of them being pre-paid customers. Around 60 per cent of pre-paid customers have not yet declared their information to the operator.

“Once the regulations become stronger, we might soon meet the deadline raised by the ministry,” said Le Ngoc Minh, MobiFone director.

The MIC issued Decision 03/2007/QD-BTTTT on September 4 last year on pre-paid subscriber management.

Each pre-paid subscriber must provide their ID card or passport, date of birth and address. Subscribers younger than 14 must have a guardian for guarantee.

(Source: VIR)