Security threat prompts India to ban import of Chinese mobile phones without IMEI code

After Pakistan-based terrorists attacked Mumbai's hotels, restaurants and railway stations in November last year, killing at least 200 people, sleuths investigating the incident, said some of the terrorists were using Chinese mobile phones in which the International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number, or a 15-digit code that appears on the operator's network whenever a call is made, is absent. The intelligence agencies warned that in the past too, terrorists have been found using Chinese phones, in which the code is absent, to carry out attacks in the country.

The absence of this IMEI number not only makes it virtually impossible to trace either the caller or the phone but also makes it impossible to recover call details for these handsets, they said.

These Chinese mobile phones, which are cheap imitations of branded ones but carry all or most of the features of the pricier handsets, retail in Indian gray markets, without bill or warranty, at prices between $60 and $120 and have become a hit among rural and semi-urban consumers who want a stylish phone and connectivity at cheaper cost.

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Earlier this year, the government ordered mobile phone operators to identify the users of these handsets but the phone companies dragged their feet and asked for more time to identify these phones, saying the exercise was time-consuming.

Hence, the government took strong steps this week by ordering mobile phone operators not to give new connections to users of such handsets. The Directorate-General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) also said that import of such mobile handsets would be banned indefinitely. "Import of mobile handsets without International Mobile Equipment Identify (IMEI) number or with all-zero IMEI is prohibited with immediate effect," DGFT said in a notification.

The telecom ministry estimates that around 30 million or eight percent of India's mobile phone subscribers use the cheap handsets that are generally imported from China and Taiwan.

According to Pankaj Mohandroo, the president of Indian Cellular Association, the government announcement is a step in the right direction but is only a part of the solution. "This is a step in the right direction to throttle handset gray market. However, much more needs to be done to tackle this menace. We have demanded immediate disconnection of services to such mobile phones but that has not happened. We are working with the Government in this regard," Mohandroo said.

Mohandroo also said the problem of millions of handsets in circulation has not been addressed. An estimated 800,000 such phones are smuggled into India every month, he added.

Meanwhile, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has developed a software for embedding the IMEI code on handsets without the requisite IMEI numbers and tracking them. It has tied up with Mobile Standard Alliance of India to set up 1600 retail outlets across the country and is urging users of Chinese handsets, which do not have an IMEI number, to obtain a number by paying Rs.180 to their network operator by June 30. After June 30, the Equipment Identity Register (EIR) used by the operators will have to reject all calls made from a phone without an IMEI or with all zeros in place of a genuine IMEI, the COAI said in its website.

According to Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst, Gartner Inc., "The impact (of the ban) on the market has been minimized with the government allowing the operators to issue IMEI numbers to subscribers with handsets that do not have IMEI numbers."