With the ruling parties set to table a bill prohibiting the sale of prepaid cellular phones at the current extraordinary Diet session, alarm bells are ringing at cellphone companies.

The bill proposed by Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito lawmakers is primarily aimed at stopping prepaid phones being used in increasingly common ``it's me, it's me'' fraud cases.

Meanwhile, communications ministry officials have put on hold a plan obliging all prepaid phone users to register themselves. The plan was to have been announced Wednesday.

``We were ready to announce reliable measures to confirm identification of users,'' vice minister Michihiro Kayama said Thursday. ``Now we will see what the ruling parties do before we decide what to do.''

The ministry blamed the anonymous nature of the prepaid cellphone system, which doesn't require users to provide identification at the time of resale, as an indirect cause of the crimes.

On Wednesday, however, the ruling parties decided to submit a bill banning the sale of prepaid phones altogether to the current Diet session.

``We've been asked by National Police Agency and Justice Ministry officials (to submit the bill) without fail,'' said a senior LDP lawmaker.

Some communications ministry officials cast a wary eye on the bill, noting that a blanket ban would punish users who have no intention of breaking the law, such as parents who give their children prepaid phones to keep call charges from getting out of hand.

The bill's passage would hit Vodafone KK and Tu-Ka group hard.

Domestically, there are about 2.7 million prepaid cellphone users, accounting for a mere 3 percent of all cellphone users in the country.

However, 1.5 million Vodafone subscribers, about 10 percent of all the company's subscribers, use prepaid phones. Tu-Ka, a pioneer in prepaid phones, has 700,000 prepaid phone users, or about 20 percent of all subscribers.

Executives of both companies complain the bill infringes their economic freedom and would have a negative impact on their revenue.

In light of circumstances in the communications industry, sources say submission of the bill might be postponed until the ordinary Diet session opens early next year.(IHT/Asahi: October 23,2004) (10/23)