No counterfeit mobile phone has been spared in the process of disconnecting the products from operations in Tanzania, the Communication regulatory commission has affirmed.
Tanzania Communication Regulatory Authority (TCRA) Head of Corporate Communications, Mr Innocent Mungy, said that about 630,000 fake handsets were disconnected at midnight on Friday. “Disconnection of fake mobile phones is a process and not a onetime point as it is done in the digital TV migration process,” he said.
He added that the Central Equipment Identification Registrar (CEIR), was recording all the counterfeit handsets disconnected whereby about 630,000 disconnections were recorded by midnight.
The CEIR is a database of all the International Mobile Station Equipment Identity (IMEI). The counterfeit mobiles phones were disconnected using a number called the IMEI.
Mr Mungy said that the telecommunication companies in the country first had to block the counterfeit products of their customers before the telecom regulatory disconnected through the CEIR.
In a survey done by the ‘Daily News on Saturday’ by mid-day yesterday, several people were still using their fake handsets despite the authority’s announcement that the phones had been disconnected.
However, Mr Mungy said that the counterfeit phones that were still functioning past yesterday midnight would not survive. He insisted that they were not going to survive anymore since they have been blocked.
In a survey carried out in the city, the ‘Daily News on Saturday’ identified out that the price list of most mobiles original phones have been changed with high prices as others doubled. Speaking to this paper, one of the original handset sellers at the business shops in the city highly commended the move, as it would see their businesses developing.
“The prices have to go up because we have been selling the handsets at cheap prices just to make us survive in the market. But now we are sure of better businesses because people must buy original phones,” said one of the sellers.
