There are questions over how many Papua New Guinea mobile phones have been de-activated after a registration deadline passed.
Dr Amanda Watson Photo: Supplied
In 2018 people in PNG were told to register their simcards by the end of last month or have their phones de-activated.
An Australian National University researcher, who studies mobile phones usage in PNG, said the government had not yet announced how many phones had been deactivated.
While it's clear some have been, Amanda Watson of the School of Asia Pacific Affairs, said her concern was that some rural communities may be completely cut off.
"I do hope there is a process where if someone's phone has been deactivated they can reactivate it within a month or two or three.
"That would be good, because then they can keep the same phone number. Otherwise they then have to go and get a new phone number, and of course all their contacts won't know the new number and so on."
Watson said it was possible that a large number of mobile phones, particularly those in rural areas, had now been deactivated.
"I have a worry about whether there's some rural or remote communities where they've been completely cut off. For instance if there was a tsunami or earthquake or something there we might not be able to assist them or know about it because of the lack of communication."
Neither the National Information and Communications Technology Authority nor PNG's Communications Minister Timothy Masiu were available for comment.
However Watson said PNG authorities had made a "fair amount of effort" to communicate the mandatory simcard registration requirements.
Every mobile phone user has been required to register their simcard with their name, address, photograph and other information.
Recent research has found that out of an overall population of around 8 million the total number of mobile phones in use in PNG was 2.8 million, and around 2.5 million people using them.
