The formal decision was made by the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) in the aftermath of the Ratchaprasong bombing.
“Prepaid mobile users who failed to register their personal information by the July 31 deadline are now being cut off and are unable to use outbound mobile calling and data services,” said NBTC secretary-general Takorn Tantasith.
Those users can still receive incoming calls and SMS messages for one more month.
“We can confirm that all existing unregistered prepaid numbers are in our control,” Mr Takorn said.
A mobile phone without a registered SIM card cannot make a call or access the internet. Mr Takorn said this would prevent criminals using unregistered SIM cards from easily exploiting the numbers for illicit activity.
The cabinet approved the prepaid registration rule last month as part of the national security agenda.
Up to 67.8 million prepaid numbers, out of a total of 85.5 million issued numbers, have been registered with usersʼ personal information.
Of the total 17.7 million unregistered numbers, 13 million are inactive users and the remaining 4.7 million are still active.
“We are in talks with the three major mobile operators on implementing measures to terminate all existing unregistered numbers within the next month,” Mr Takorn said.
Operators must inform those users 30 days before cutting off their services, in line with regulations governing telecom service contracts.
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