Officially closed but IMEI implant still on

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Confusion at policy level and lack of information and support provided to authorized genuine IMEI implant centres is victimizing customers who had phones without IMEI number.

Mobile Standard Association of India, the body authorized to issue IMEI number, received from GSMA, has officially closed implant of IMEI number on November 30, as per the directive of the Department of Telecom but the authorized centres are still planting IMEI numbers. In this whole process both customers and last mile authorized centers are becoming victims.

CIOL randomly checked with some of the authorized centres in Delhi and found that their parent associate has provided them software but not IMEI numbers.

“We got software from Mobizone a few days back but the number has not come to us till date,” said Amarpreet Singh, proprietor, Mobile Planet.

Cellular Operators Association of India and MSAI have together advertised the name of authorized GII centres. These centers are getting frequent calls from customers that possessed handset without IMEI numbers but no proper support has been provided by their parent associate.

“I got software from Mobizone 15 days back but till date I have not received IMEI numbers from them. Lots of customers looking at advertisement called us but we could not implant IMEI number in any of the handset till date,” said JP Rathore, proprietor, JP Electronics.

Spokesperson from Mobizone over phone informed CIOL that the number was not issued because of the involvement of other company at the last moment with MSAI moving out of the issue.

“We were working with MSAI but it backed out on last November 27 and another company Drishti Telelink started working on it. Since this is not our main business, we did not want to sign a fresh agreement with them to work for just one day,” said Mithun Ekbote from Mobizone.

MSAI has refused to have backed out at any moment of GII program.

“We never backed out from the program. Since our server was down because of heavy load on it we outsourced some of our work to partners. Drishti Telelink is our outsourced partner in this program,” said Bhawna, relationship manager, MSAI.

However, this lack of proper communication lead to non-availability of IMEI numbers at GII centres and barring of service on handset of many customers.

One of GII centres informed CIOL that it is still implanting IMEI number from a company named Asian Electronics.

When CIOL checked with Asian Electronics using the contact given by this GII centre, it found the information was true.

“Yes we are still issuing IMEI numbers. You can get on credit basis. You will have to pay Rs. 165 per number and for thousand numbers it will become Rs. 160,” said Sunny, who is with Asian Electronics.

Sunny also insisted that along with this IMEI, the seeker of this IMEI numbers software will have to pay additional Rs. 4700 for a spiderman box that will be used to implant IMEI number.

MSAI on this has acknowledged Asian Electronics as its authorized partner but refused to take responsibility of any authorized partner, who is implanting IMEI number after November 30, 2009.

“We have personally met and told all authorized partners that the program will be closed on November 30, 2009. If they are implanting IMEI number even now, it is their responsibility, we are not liable for this,” said Gaurav from technical support team of MSAI.

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