Ilonggos dismayed by SIM registration mishaps

By Joseph B.A. Marzan and John Noel E. Herrera

The first day of the registration of Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) cards was met with dismay from customers over technical delays and waiting times for portals, some of which have yet to open.

Tuesday, Dec 27, 2022, was the first day of the effectivity of Republic Act No. 11934 (SIM Registration Act), which aims to regulate the use of SIMs due to the surge in scams via Short Messaging Service (SMS) or text messaging in the past years.

Under the law signed by Pres. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Oct 10, existing SIMs, both pre-paid (or those used with ‘loads’) and post-paid (or commonly referred to as ‘plans’), are required to be registered through Public Telecommunications Entities (PTEs).

This is done through an application form provided by the PTEs together with the user’s vital personal details and valid government-issued identification documents (IDs), with some additional requirements for entities, foreign nationals, and minors.

PTEs are commonly known as our telecommunications (telco) companies, which, for mobile, include Globe, Smart, and DITO, all of which have set up dedicated portals within their websites for the application process, as well as guidelines and frequently asked questions (FAQs) leading up to Tuesday.

But upon registering, many users were met with faulty websites, and long waiting times for their One-Time Personal Identification Numbers (PINs) or OTPs, which are used to confirm the existence of the mobile numbers of the SIMs being registered.

Almost all complaints on social media came from pre-paid users of Smart and Globe, which have higher customer volumes. DITO, on the other hand, did not receive many comments on its process.

“DITO gamit ko and naka-register man ko, pero early in the morning to siya, so muna siguro kay that time, gamay pa lang ang naga-access sa server and stable ang akon connection, so naka-register man,” Ralph Luntao said.

DITO told Philstar.com that as of 3 p.m. Tuesday, 208,039 of their users have already registered their mobile numbers, describing their process as “generally smooth”.

Many Ilonggos also took their frustrations over social media, sharing their experiences about the delays both in accessing the PTEs’ portals through their own posts or through the comments sections.

“I tried registering with Smart but an error always pops up every time I request for an OTP so I haven’t continued,” one user claimed.

“I am both a prepaid and a postpaid subscriber. My experience with Smart has been clunky. They provided a link in [Smart’s payment portal] Maya that doesn’t work. When I tried again, an OTP can’t be generated and I have been getting a null pop-up on their website. [I am] considering registering at a later date,” another user narrated.

Some of the users shared their experience at length with Daily Guardian.

As of this writing, Jade Abelida from Molo district, who has used her SIMs with Smart for 7 years and with Globe for 3 years, said that both telcos have been showing difficulties when it came to registering.

Abelida said she already tried to register with Smart multiple times, while Globe’s portal was difficult to access, showing error messages on her browser at every log-in.

She added that if she wouldn’t be able to register within Tuesday, she might just try within the next days.

“I’ve tried since earlier [this morning] but the OTP [from Smart] isn’t going through. [I’ve been told to wait] for 1 hour, but I’ve tried again and again and nothing happens. The Globe SIM registration site really isn’t opening,” Abelida shared.

Era Joy Lagos shared the same situation, having tried to register her Talk-N-Text (TNT) SIM of 10 years since Tuesday morning 5 to 6 times, but to no avail.

“[I’ve been trying to register] since [Tuesday] morning but still not done yet, due to errors and [delayed] loading, then once I do verify via face capture, it shows an error message. I may just have to go to a Smart center to ask for assistance, but I will try [on Wednesday] morning, it may push through,” she shared.

Hernando Engada Jr. was a rare case, as he was able to register his Smart SIM of 2 years and his TNT SIM of 5 years, but the message showed him that he needed to wait for another SMS as his information was still being validated.

“I thought when I registered, it would be automatic because I did see some [social media] posts saying that they had already been automatically registered. There was no information on [the Smart] website about [further verification]. There was no message from [the PTE]. I was also expecting an email because they did ask for my email address but there was none,” Engada said.

Jovy Fluer from Igbaras, Iloilo, said that she could not even proceed with the registration process after encoding her Smart SIM card number into the portal.

“Hindi akon number ma-register, kada enter ko sang number ko, ga gagwa nga ‘null’, then hindi na ka-proceed since na-exceed ko na ang number of attempts,” Jovy said.

One Globe user also said that he could not access the link to the portal as he tried to register his SIM card.

“Try ko na tani mag-register dayon, pero sang gin-click ko ang link para sa website sang Globe, hindi man siya mag-connect, hindi ma-access,” Clark Econde said.

Meanwhile, other subscribers said that they haven’t tried to register their SIM cards yet and will just wait for some time as there might be problems that will occur in the first few days of the registration process.