The long-debated real-name subscription of mobile phone users will start in 2006, said Chinese Minister of Information Industry Wang Xudong in Beijing on Tuesday.

About 200 million users of prepaid cell phones will be required to register their real names.

Among the 388 million cell phone users in China, only those who pay afterwards are asked to register their ID information upon subscription, while those who pay in advance have no personal information registered at all.

Real-name cell phone subscription has stirred controversy from the day it was proposed.

Telecom operators feel it will be inconvenient to collect their users' information and subscribers feel their privacy will be threatened.

"It will be quite difficult for operators to convince their prepaid users to register their names," commented Chen Jinqiao, head of the policy research division with the Telecommunications Academy under the Ministry of Information Industry (MII).

Wang, the minister, has made it clear that the new policy is part of the efforts to combat cell phone-related crimes and the rampant spread of junk text messages in the country.

Sources with the MII said that over 10,000 cell phones have been shut down this year for spreading illegal messages with fraudulent, harassing, or erotic text.

The ministry researched the real-name subscription system and did a pilot experiment in Shanghai two years ago.

However, policy making was delayed for the fear that it would slow down the growth of mobile phone users.

Source: Xinhua