The Kingdom’s telecom regulator has threatened to strip the operating licence of a local internet service provider (ISP) whose owners appear to have shut down operations and skipped town.

Im Vutha, spokesman of the Telecommunications Regulator of Cambodia (TRC), said yesterday that his agency was preparing to take action against G-Tell (Cambodia) Investment Group Co Ltd, which operates ISP and Voice over Internet Protocol services under the brand name Mega.

“We found that the company has not been operating for the past few months, during which time they did not submit operating reports or pay due taxes,” he said. “When we went to inspect the company we found that the owners had shut down the company already without informing us, and we’d lost contact.”

He said company representatives have until Friday to present themselves at the TRC and explain their actions and resolve debts, or face formal closure and possible legal action.

“The TRC will revoke their license and file a complaint to the court if they do not present themselves by the deadline,” Vutha said, adding that there are suspicions that the owners may have already left Cambodia.

Mega launched ISP services in 2012. Calls to the company’s registered office in Phnom Penh yesterday went unanswered. A representative at Mega’s contracted call centre said the company ceased operating in April and the whereabouts of its owners were unknown.

The last operating report submitted by the company to the TRC showed that it had 123 fixed-line internet subscribers, according to Vutha.

There were a total of 109,231 fixed-line internet subscribers in Cambodia, and 8.2 million mobile internet users as of April, according to TRC data.