The owners of active Sim-Cards will be required to register them starting on Thursday March 1st 2012 as required by the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC).
The UCC recently directed that all mobile phone users should have all their Sims registered, lest they fail to make or receive phone calls or send text messages since all unregistered Sim cards will be deactivated by the respective service providers on March 2013.
Currently there are five telephone service providers: MTN, OrangeUganda, Uganda Telecom (UTL), Warid telecom and Airtel Uganda.
The nationwide sim cards registration seeks to check on the use of mobile phone numbers for illegal activities such as conning, embezzlement, terrorism, phone theft, unsolicited and threat messages.
According to UCC, telephone company customers will either register their sim cards or their telephone numbers will be deactivated by the telephone service subscribers.