Myline registration is lagging far behind schedule due to insufficient computer capacity, a telecommunications industry group said Wednesday in an apology statement.

As of Monday, 5.5 million of 57 million applicants to the phone-carrier selection system that started in May were kept waiting for registration, according to the Myline Carrier Association, which consists of 12 major fixed-phone carriers.

Registered users can make domestic and international phone calls on preferred telecom carriers without having to dial the carriers' prefix numbers.

The association initially planned to register users within two weeks of applying, but the waiting period for some users has exceeded two months.

Given the long waiting list, the telecommunications ministry has told Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp.'s two regional arms, which are responsible for processing applications, to work faster.

The association has strengthened registration capacity from 200,000 a day to 320,000, shortening the waiting period to about 30 days, the group said.

The NTT group had attracted more than half of the registered users as of the end of July, according to the association.

NTT East Corp. and NTT West Corp., the regional phone companies of the NTT group, captured a combined 75 percent of local-call applicants and 70 percent of other intraprefectural call users.

NTT Communications Corp. gained 60 percent of long-distance call applications and 56 percent of international ones, the association said.