UAE deadline: Register SIM card by October 16 or lose service

Etisalat and du have given 1.5 million mobile phone users one month to re-register their SIM cards or face disconnection of services for three months.

The October 16 deadline is the first of six three-month phases for more than 12 million mobile phone subscribers in the second largest Arab economy to re-register their SIM cards or face service disconnection.

Etisalat and du, the UAE’s only service providers, said the move is in line with instructions by the UAE’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) to have all mobile phone users in the country re-register their SIM cards with the aim of updating their personal data in the two companies’ systems.

Newspapers on Saturday quoted service providers as saying 1.5 million subscribers are included in the first three-month stage which began two months ago and ends on October 16. They said Etisalat and du had sent texts to the mobile phones of all those users asking them to register or face disconnection.

“We are sending five messages to our subscribers…if they do not respond and re-register their SIM cards, then a last warning message will be sent to them telling them that they will lose service for three months if they do not have their service re-registered,” said Hassan Al Abdouli, an executive manager at Etisalat’s sales division. “We call upon all users to go to our service centres and get their SIM cards registered again to avoid suspension of service.”