Some mobile phone users found themselves victims of the recent counterfeit phone switch off despite having genuine handsets. We stumbled on such a case on Airtel Kenya Twitter handle where a user complained that his original phone had been switched off.
Shedding light on the counterfeit phones issue on KTNs’ Sunrise Live, Yu Mobile Country Manager, Madhur Taneja noted that duplicated IMEIs is still a problem, and is much bigger than what is currently being seen. Duplicate IMEI numbers are created by manufactures of counterfeit phones. He warned that some genuine phones may be switched off as well. The same may occur to phones that were issued as test phones by the manufacturer. He said that what may be genuine today may not be genuine tomorrow due to duplicate IMEIs.
The counterfeit mobile phone switch off exercise entails blocking a phone that bears a fake IMEI number from accessing a mobile operators’ network. Genuine IMEI numbers are issued by GSMA thus CCK used GSMA data base to identify genuine, and counterfeit, phones.
Speaking at the Sunrise Live, Madhur Taneja said, “We do not want to penalize customers unfairly. We will only switch off if it is counterfeit.”
As of this morning, 2 October 2012, 180,000 counterfeit handsets had been switched off on Yu Mobile Kenya. Safaricom, through a press release, said the switch off exercise had an impact on over 680,000 customers out of its 19.1 million subscriber base.
Industry regulator, Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) had issued the switch off directive compelling all service providers to ensure that counterfeit phones were blocked from accessing Kenyan mobile networks with effect from 30 September 2012.