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11:47 PM UTC · FRIDAY, MAY 8, 2026 LA ERA · Chile
May 8, 2026 · Updated 11:47 PM UTC
Technology

Mexico on High Alert as 82.5% of Mobile Users Fail to Register Lines

With only 53 days left before the mandatory registration deadline, over 133 million mobile lines in Mexico have yet to link their official ID and CURP.

Rodrigo Vega

2 min read

Mexico on High Alert as 82.5% of Mobile Users Fail to Register Lines
Smartphone displaying a notification in a Mexican urban setting

More than 82% of mobile lines in Mexico have not completed the mandatory registration process, threatening service continuity for millions of users just 53 days before the legal deadline, according to elfinanciero.com.mx.

Of the 161.7 million lines reported at the end of 2025, only 28.3 million have been successfully registered. This represents a compliance rate of just 17.5 percent.

Ernesto Piedras, CEO of The Competitive Intelligence Unit (The CIU), noted that the implementation of this registration has become a critical issue given the low number of lines currently on record.

To meet the June 30 deadline, authorities would need to process more than 1.75 million registrations per day—a pace the executive warned is unfeasible.

“To achieve this goal, more than one million 750 thousand lines would need to be registered daily between now and June 30 of this year. This is impossible; at the current rate of registration, it would take at least two years to complete the more than 160 million lines,” Piedras stated.

The delay threatens a massive wave of disconnections, primarily affecting the prepaid segment, which makes up 83% of the Mexican market.

Impact on Carriers and Security Risks

Carriers Telcel and AT&T Mexico are already showing signs of the crisis. During the first quarter, América Móvil lost 483,000 connections, while AT&T reported a reduction of 577,000 mobile lines.

Jesús Romo, an analyst at Global Data, explained that the impact is concentrated in the prepaid segment, which is dominated by low-income consumers. According to the analyst, if this trend continues, there is a clear risk to company revenues and profits.

Furthermore, experts warn that the lack of biometric data in the current process facilitates serious crimes. Mony De Swaan Addati, former president of the now-defunct Cofetel, noted that the current system allows for identity theft.

“Under the current scheme, it is enough to present an ID and a CURP to activate a line in someone else's name, without robust verification mechanisms (...) the balance between privacy and security has been lost,” De Swaan Addati warned.

The expert concluded that the current measure undermines the certainty of a user's true identity and that extending the deadline will not solve the underlying problem unless the security mechanism is redesigned.

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