Cabinet has approved an amendment to the Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-related Information Act, or Rica, giving operators and customers a six-month extension.

In terms of the Rica legislation, mobile operators would have had to disconnect all customers who had not registered their SIM cards in line with Rica by December 31, this year.

Section 62 (6) of Rica would be amended shortly to allow for the deadline to be moved to June 2011.

Mobile operators would now have to report to government on how they plan to comply with the new deadline, government revealed at a post-Cabinet briefing on Thursday.

The implementation of the Rica legislation had, throughout the past few months, been flagged as a major concern for mobile operators, which said that this was having a negative impact on prepaid customer growth.

Vodacom CEO Pieter Uys on Monday reported that its local customer base had finally recovered from the effects of the Rica legislation and that three-quarters of its subscribers have registered their SIM cards.