The market for Chinese knock-off phones is being closed down amid health risk claims and worries about security, reports Nader Habib The budget-minded don't ask about the brand or the guarantee. All they want is an upmarket set for bottom of the rung prices, and now they have been burned. The National Telecom Regulatory Authority (NTRA), which many now blame for not warning consumers earlier, has now banned the counterfeit sets. Many Egyptians have bought knockoff phones made in China without licences. So imagine their anguish when their service is discontinued soon. Consumers loved the knock-offs. They broke down quite often, but were cheap to buy and cheap to replace. You could buy a Nokia 95 for as little as LE800 ($150). But the camera wouldn't be five megapixels -- perhaps three megapixels, or only two. "Frankly, all the Chinese sets have cameras that are less than 1.3 megapixels. You don't get any information on the box or on the lens... and there is no guarantee," a trader told me. Some consumers were happy with what they got -- others less so. "I bought a C-1000 Chinese set for LE600. A week later, the screen went blank. I was in Marsa Matrouh and tried to get it fixed everywhere but in vain. Then I tried to sell it at a mobile shop, and the salesman said he would give me LE50 ($9) for it," said a disgruntled buyer. NTRA Executive Director Amr Badawi says that Chinese products do not meet international standards and are actually a threat to users' health. The sets, he adds, are also a threat to national security as some of the phones share the same serial number, which makes it hard to track down mobile phones when needed. The now-banned sets are said to have higher-than-permitted SAR (Specific Absorption Rate) levels, which make them a health threat. Badawi said that anyone importing or manufacturing any of the illegal sets is punishable by up to one year in prison and a fine ranging between LE20,000 ($3,600) and LE50,000. The measures are said to protect the rights of users in Egypt from companies selling phones that are substandard, harmful to users, and lack maintenance options. But some salesmen challenge the official narrative. Some claim that NTRA is merely defending the earnings of international companies operating in Egypt. The latter have been hurt by increasing sales of mobile knock-offs that consumers love because of their cheap price tags. Demand has been substantial, with consumers on a budget wanting to enjoy the latest in phone technology. Knock-off phones can cause insomnia and brain damage to users, some medical experts say. In the long run, they may even destroy the immune system. Cell phones emit two frequencies, 900 gigahertz and 1.8 megahertz, and both interfere with brain cells and can increase the threat of cancer, especially among children. Speaking at the World Consumer Rights Day, 15 March, Consumer Protection Agency Chief Said Al-Alfi blamed NTRA for failing to warn consumers about counterfeit phones, adding that NTRA should have intervened earlier and stopped shops from selling the unlicensed products. On its website, NTRA mentions the regulations needed to import telecommunication sets and lists the 486 phone set brands that have been licensed for sale in the local market. For its part, the three mobile communications providers are going to implement NTRA instructions and cut off their services to customers using non-standard Chinese phones as of 1 April. The companies have advised affected consumers to take any complaint to NTRA, as they are only complying with its regulations. The crisis of counterfeit phones surfaced in March 2008 after phone companies and their agents ignored the government's order to keep information on line owners. NTRA has warned that mobile lines that are not under legal contract may be used in terrorist attacks. Badawi says that mobile phone service providers and their agents must stop selling lines without written contracts. The distributor and the phone user would be legally accountable if the line is used for illegitimate purposes, he adds. IN A NEW move aiming to improve the service of the three main phone networks, NTRA declared its intention to increase the current mobile line numbers from 10 digits to 11. The digit "2" will be added after the code 012 for Mobinil, the digit "0" will be added to the code 010 for Vodaphone, and the digit "1" will be added to the code 011 for Etisalat. The number changes will take place as of 2011 over a period of one year, and with enough notice given to customers, NTRA says. Badawi notes that the increase in the length of mobile phone numbers is taking place upon a mandatory decision by NTRA, one that all phone companies have agreed to. It is a necessary move considering the great rise in demand on phone lines, which now increase by over one million per month. The additional digit would add a potential one billion lines to the service, which should suffice the country for more than 30 years. But what is the fate of millions of unlicensed and harmful mobile phones that are now banned from service? Can NTRA take care of the problem, or will the Ministry of Environment need to intervene?
