A total of 1.9 million mobile lines ending in 1 were suspended in Mexico at the close of the second phase of the phone registration process, with a cutoff date of September 3, according to the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (CRT). Those who did not link their number to their CURP and voter ID lost service, though not their number.
The phone registry is the national plan that ties each mobile line to its owner's identity through the CURP and voter ID, in phases that advance according to the last digit of the number. Of the 11.4 million active lines ending in 1, 9 million 550 thousand completed the link, a completion rate of 83.4%, as reported by Expansión. Purging inactive numbers is part of the objective: the CRT estimates that around 25 million lines in the country are unused. The suspension also affects the binational community: thousands of families and businesses in the United States communicate with Mexico through those numbers, and a suspended line leaves calls that cannot come in or go out.
Of the total 13.9 million numbers ending in 1 in the registry, the CRT explained that 68.7% registered on time; the remainder includes around 2.5 million SIM cards that were never activated or were single-use and will fall out of use. Of the suspended lines, 1,162,793 had already been reactivated within 72 hours of the deadline, according to the regulator. During the suspension, users keep their number, can call emergency services, their carrier, and citizen service lines, and receive seismic alerts. Nationally, 80.9 million lines are already linked, according to the regulator. Workers at Telcel, AT&T, and Movistar explained to Expansión that one of the most common questions concerns the "proof of life" requirement, the selfie used to validate identity, although the CRT has stated that no biometric data is captured.
To recover a line, users simply need to complete the CURP and voter ID link; service is restored immediately, according to the CRT. The next deadline is September 15 for numbers ending in 2, and the calendar runs through December 31. Verify your line before that date to avoid losing service.
This article was written with artificial intelligence assistance from verified sources and reviewed by a human editor before publication.