Thousands of mobile phones shut down in Tanzania

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.
One Grace Robi, a resident of Dar es Salaam, said that her mobile phone that has been confirmed as counterfeit was not disconnected as of yesterday mid-day, a move that gave her hope to continue using it despite the ban.
“When TCRA said that all the counterfeit handsets would be blocked from communication by yesterday midnight, I sat back and waited to see how the process would work.
“Fortunately, my phone is still active till now (11:54 am yesterday),” she said. Several other people who had confirmed that their handsets would be disabled once the government ban is imposed also confirmed to have been using the phones until Friday past midnight. On the other hand, prices of original mobile phones had increasingly went up with some doubling imposing more communication difficulties to the victims.
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.
On the other hand, those affected by the process expressed the need for the government to come up with a better plan that would enable people especially those who have lost their phones to acquire the original ones at affordable prices.