Mobile giants freeze sale of SIM cards in Uganda Major mobile phone service providers in Uganda have responded to tough new rules targeting criminal use of unregistered SIM cards by halting sales. The telecommunication companies have also been ordered to recall all SIM cards held in stock by street vendors, agents and hawkers. Under that country's Communications Commission's new rules, mobile phone service providers will have to "validate national identification information for its customers which will then be verified against the national database. Both MTN and Airtel which are the biggest of Uganda's eight mobile service providers have tweeted the news to their customers. SOURCE: BBC NEWS ---DECRYPTED---