Overview
- The Comisión Reguladora de Telecomunicaciones extended the national requirement and announced a staggered calendar that runs from August 15 to December 31, 2026, after reporting about 63 million lines already linked.
- Under the timetable carriers must suspend lines that remain unlinked within 72 hours of each digit’s deadline and limit those lines to emergency and operator calls until the owner completes the linkage and service is restored.
- Major operators including AT&T México and Telefónica Movistar have said they will follow the schedule but questions remain about whether postpaid accounts will be migrated automatically because no official rule for mass automatic registration has been published.
- The CRT insists the federal government will not centralize user records and that operators should keep only the subscriber’s name, CURP and phone number, yet many users report distrust and worry about how personal data will be handled.
- Security firms warn the bigger digital risk may come from number reassignment when inactive lines are recycled because new owners can receive verification codes linked to the previous holder, complicating account recovery and exposing users to fraud.