Myanmar’s mobile operators have disconnected ‘millions’ of SIMs following the completion of the regulator’s re-registration drive on 30 June. Whilst the Ministry of Transport and Communications (MOTC) and its Post and Telecommunications Department (PTD) have yet to confirm the total number of unregistered or incorrectly registered SIMs that were disconnected, Telenor Myanmar CEO Jon Omund Revhaug noted in an open letter that SIM cards stopped working for ‘millions of mobile customers across Myanmar’. The official went on to apologise for the inconvenience of the disconnections, and added that it was ‘painful to have to switch off and stop serving such a large share of our customers’.
As previously reported by TeleGeography’s CommsUpdate, the re-registration process was launched in February this year to help protect the security of mobile financial services, prevent phone-related crime and to crackdown on incorrectly registered SIMs.