December 4, 2004
Swisscom Blocks 130,000 Prepaid Mobile Phone Numbers
Switzerland's incumbent telephone operator, Swisscom, this week blocked some 130,000 prepaid mobile phone numbers because their owners failed to register them by an end-of-October deadline, reports the Dow Jones
"Company spokesman Sepp Huber said Swisscom was required by Swiss law to block the unregistered numbers. The law was implemented after it became known that Al Qaeda terrorists used Swiss prepaid SIM cards in the past because of their anonymity.
Swisscom had around 1.5 million prepaid customers at the end of September."
Related article:
-- Switzerland forcing registration of PrePay customers - The Swiss parliament decided last year to make registration mandatory for prepaid cards, after intelligence warnings that members of al-Qaida were using them to make calls without being traced.
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