El Salvador’s telecoms regulator has announced that some 113,000 prepaid mobile accounts have been cut-off this year due to their ownership details not being correctly registered.

The regulator operates a “Register of Mobile Phone Users” (RUTEM) which logs the personal ID of each SIM card users, although it is not currently a legal requirement and the regulator is pushing the government to pass the necessary legislation.

The head of the regulator, Luis Méndez Menéndez also confirmed that the regulator is still in talks with the government and mobile networks over the deployment of Mobile Number Portability.

Their studies indicate that it would cost around US$15 million to deploy, and that the cost would be borne by the mobile networks, if implemented.