Mexico Stages Staggered Extension for Mandatory Mobile Phone Registration

Mexico’s telecommunications regulator, the Comisión Reguladora de Telecomunicaciones (CRT), announced a staggered extension of the mandatory mobile‑phone line registration. The original June 30 deadline has been replaced with a calendar that runs from mid‑August 2024 to 31 December 2026, assigning specific cut‑off dates according to the final digit of each phone number. Users must register online; failure to do so by the assigned date will result in a 72‑hour suspension of service, leaving only emergency calls, carrier contact and seismic alerts functional. The measure, presented by President Claudia Sheinbaum, aims to link every line to an individual to aid crime‑prevention efforts while avoiding a sudden mass loss of connectivity for the estimated 144 million mobile lines in the country.