The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Mobile users advised to shun illegal handsets

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Friday, Nov 20, 2009
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Mobile users advised to shun illegal handsets

Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD: Supporting the Union Government’s directive to bar services to illegal or unbranded mobile handsets by November-end in view of security and health concerns, Indian Cellular Association (ICA) appealed to both consumers and trade bodies to desist from purchasing such devices.

Addressing a media conference here on Thursday, Pankaj Mohindroo, National President, ICA, said such handsets could be identified easily as they would not have legitimate International Mobile Equipment Identification (IMEI) number. It urged the government to also include cloned IMEI numbers under the ban as cloned IMEI numbers were those copied from other legitimate handsets.

Once the ban would come into effect from December 1, about 25 million handsets would get disconnected. Handsets without legitimate IMEI would pose a serious threat to national security besides encouraging growth of grey market, and depriving government of legitimate revenue.

Mr. Mohindroo said if mobile handsets worth Rs.86 crore were sold in 2002, the figure touched Rs.2,000 crore this fiscal. The ICA had undertaken a massive campaign to sensitise the government and to educate mobile phone retailers and end users about illegal handsets.

It issued a SMS solution to identify phones containing wrong IMEI numbers to check consumers to check genuineness of their mobile phones. He said IMEI was a unique 15 digit code that identifies a mobile. To check the IMEI number, one should press *#06#. To check the genuineness of the number, one should send a SMS to 57886 with the IMEI number. The SMS reply will provide the brand name, model number for which the IMEI number was originally allotted.

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