Ecuador: April 5, 2012 prepaid cellphones not registered by owners will not be operable

Starting tomorrow, the cellular operators will begin to restrict services to prepaid lines that are not registered. This, once it expires on April 5 the first deadline set by the National Telecommunications Council (Conatel) to allow subscribers to record their data. Others who failed to register their cell phone can not make calls, use the internet or send SMS (text messages) for the next 3 months. Failure to register by July should be permanently discontinued the line. Telecommunications Minister, Jaime Guerrero, said that unregistered lines “can only receive calls or messages to register their information and compliance with the registration.” he registration process, which started in July 2011, seeks to prevent theft of cell phones because the device data will be linked to the user. As of 15 January in the country they stole 367,000 cellular terminals.Read Article