24th July 2020, Kathmandu
Will your SIM card age out? We know that you can keep using your SIM card by recharging your GSM postpaid and prepaid cards. Let’s find out more about the life of your SIM card. Also, you can recharge your SIM card from abroad!
Life Cycle of Prepaid SIM Card
When you get your new SIM card from the Telecom Company, you can activate the card by dialing 1415.
Likewise, you can dial *1414# to start the service. When you start your SIM service, you have 180 days of the lifecycle even without you ever recharging your card or without “Top-Up”.
You should also know that when you Top-Up by Rs 50 to your SIM, it stays usable for 30 days. Top-Up by Rs 100 to get a usable period of 60 days. If you Top-Up by Rs 500, the usage period extends up to 1 year and with a Top-Up of Rs 1000, for 2 years!
Furthermore, when you have no minimum amount in your SIM or when you have zero balance, your SIM card automatically goes into a unilateral mode. This means if you don’t have SIM balance or you have reached the expiry date, you will only be able to receive incoming calls. You won’t be able to make any outgoing calls.
If you do not recharge your SIM card within 30 days of the above condition, your SIM service will automatically disallow incoming calls as well! Again, if you fail to recharge your card within the next 30 days of later condition, your SIM will freeze. In this freezing state, your existing balance cannot be used (in case your SIM gets limited to incoming calls only due to expiry date and not zero balance).
To clarify, if your SIM has balance but you exceed your expiry date and you Top-Up within 30 days of losing both incoming and outgoing service, you can restore your previous balance amount. However, the new expiry date will only be of the recharge amount.
If your SIM card is freezing, the company can anytime recycle that SIM card and provide it to a new customer!
Life Cycle of Postpaid SIM Card
For using the telecom facility, a user gets a credit limit in the case of a Postpaid SIM card. When the amount payable to the Telecom exceeds the credit limit, the SIM card goes into “incoming calls only” mode! A Postpaid SIM can remain in this state for a maximum of 90 days.
If the user is unable to clear the due amount within 90 days, the incoming call service also gets detached and the SIM freezes!
The SIM gets terminated if the payment is not cleared within the next 90 days of being in a frozen state.
If the user wants to use the same SIM after termination, he/she can apply for the same within 180 days of termination and pay Rs 560 as a reconnection fee.
After 180 days, if your SIM card is freezing, the company can anytime recycle that SIM card and provide it to a new customer!
Abroad Top-Up Service
Many of us take our existing SIM card with us when we go abroad. Our SIM remains inactive there. We can now Top-Up our SIM through online banking to keep our SIM in an active state. This will make it easy for us to use our SIM when we return to our homeland.
Suggested Reads:
- Browse these Government Websites for Free Using GSM Mobile Data
- Nepal Telecom brings various exciting offers on Postpaid Mobile and FTTH services
- How to Check Own Number in NTC, Ncell, and Smart Cell?
