Uganda pushes fake phones switch off deadline to next year

The Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) has back-tracked on an earlier commitment to block fake cellphones from accessing any network this year. However, the commission did not give any new date for a switch off, but the Daily Monitor said it understood this would happen in the later part of next year. Recently, UCC announced it would beginning November make it impossible for all fake mobile phones from accessing any network in the country. “The exercise to block fake phones is ongoing; however, the actual switch off will be effected late next year,” Mr Godfrey Mutabazi, the UCC executive director, told the Daily Monitor on phone. “We have established a database to identify all fake phones and we are now working to make the database bigger. The data base will have an automatic number and code which one can use to know whether his phone is authentic or not,” he said. The shift comes after a number of industry players said the deadline was too ambitious and could be hard to achieve. Mr Mutabazi said: “We shall engage all stakeholders and decide on the switch off deadline. We are committed to implementing this,” adding that “the shift was informed by the need to give stakeholders sufficient time to prepare for the exercise. In neighbouring Kenya, the Communications Commission of Kenya took more than two years to prepare the public before it it in September begun blocking fake mobile phones. Recently, Mr Eric Yang, the Huawei Uganda managing director, told the Monitor that while the move was a step in the right direction; its implementation would be hard to achieve in such a short period of time. A fake phone is one whose International Mobile Equivalent Identity (IMEI) – serial number signature imprinted on the inside of the battery compartment – cannot be recognised by data bases of genuine mobile phone manufacturers. The move seeks to protect subscribers from counterfeits but most importantly, to safeguard genuine firms from copycats. There has been an upsurge in the influx of fake mobile handsets in Uganda in the past months during Kenya’s build up to and the actual deactivation of SIM cards carried in fake mobile handsets. A recent survey found that 30 per cent of mobile phones used in Uganda were fake.