The intended exercise to block all unregistered SIM cards effective Saturday, October 1, 2022 has been put on hold.

This is to allow the Ministry of Communication and Digitalisation to examine the roadmap for the intended exercise.

A reliable source close to the SIM registration process has told Graphic Online that a new date and the modalities will be communicated early next week, but added that the punitive measures as seen earlier in September will be implemented again.

The NCA, Friday morning, met with all telcos to finalise the modalities and they expressed their readiness to go ahead with the exercise to block the unregistered SIMs as per the expiration of the deadline Friday, September 30, 2022.

Meanwhile, it said those who have done stage one (linked their Ghana Cards to their SIM cards via *404#) will have up to end of year [2022] to complete stage two of their registration.

Again, those who have not registered their SIMs at all, will be blocked from receiving calls, making calls, using data services, among other things.

It said such subscribers will however have access to initiate *404# to start their registration, and also be able to receive their unique codes via SMS.

It said for Telesol, Busy and Surfline which are grouped under Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) providers, subscribers started registration late so they will be given additional time to complete registration of their customers.

It reiterated that the industry regulator has submitted its roadmap post deadline to the policy maker, Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation, for a final greenlight to implement.

Graphic Online can confirm that the sector Minister is currently leading a Ghana delegation to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) plenipotentiary conference in Bucharest, Romania where Ghana is seeking to retain her seat on the ITU Council.