Thousands of mobile phone subscribers are rushing to service providers across the country to update their personal information.

Mobile phone subscribers at a service station in Hanoi’s Xa Dan Street.

Under the government’s Decree No. 49/NĐ-CP, issued on April 22, 2017, mobile connection can be blocked by service providers if customers fail to update their personal details before April 24.

Under the decree, all mobile phone subscriptions activated before April 24, 2017, have to be registered with accurate information of owners, including name, identification/passport number and a profile picture. If they fail to register, the service provider will block incoming calls after 15 days and stop providing services in the next 15 days.

The nearing of the deadline has caused a huge rush of customers to service providers overloading them, prompting the two giant telecommunications MobiFone and VinaPhone to delay the deadline until May 15. 

A staff at a service station in Hanoi’s Huynh Thuc Khang Street told Labour newspaper the number of subscribers visiting the centre to add their personal information has rocketed in the past 10 days.

Especially on Saturday, the centre’s staff had to work until 9pm to serve the large number of subscribers, she said.

Nguyen Viet Chien, a resident of Dich Vong Hau, said he had to wait for two hours at a service station in Hanoi’s Nguyen Phong Sac Street.

A staff of the station said, “It’s normal to wait for hours for your turn,” because the number of subscribers we had to serve was too large, he added.

In the meantime, the ministry has blamed the last-minute chaos on service providers, saying they had sent notification letters to their subscribers too late.

They had one year to update their subscribers’ personal information since the decree was issued last April. But they only sent a notification to their subscribers in March, one month before the deadline, the ministry said.

In a related movement, on Monday afternoon, a representative the ministry’s Telecommunication Department said not all subscribers would be locked after today, only subscribers, who ignored to comply with the update after they received the notice from the service providers.

In cases that subscribers have yet to receive the notice from the service providers, the service providers have no right to lock or suspend the provision of services to the subscribers.

Data from the ministry shows that only four million out of 38 million pre-paid subscribers in the country updated their personal information until the end of March. — VNS