CAIRO: Egypt is moving toward a plan to block the use of mobile phones that do not have International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI). This would mean that all services to any anonymous users and made-in-China phones without a proper IMEI within the Egyptian market would be banned. Hassanein el-Shoura, a member of Egyptian People’s Assembly, said this week he does not agree with the move and has asked parliament to get information from Communications and Information Technology Minister Tareq Kamel on the government's decision to ban certain phones. According to el-Shoura, the problem is that Chinese mobile phones represent “70 percent of handsets in Egypt.” Other observers do not believe that number to be correct, arguing that the actual number of Chinese-made phones is much lower. “That’s kinda too steep figure, which I find hard to believe. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve no doubts there are quite a few China-made phones in Egypt, but I’m sure not all of them lack IMEI,” said Duson Belic of intomobile.com. “Anyway, NTRA officials responded saying it is impossible to cut services to all the unknown mobile phones at the same time due to scale issues,” he added. The question now is what this will mean for the Egyptian market and mobile users. According to Belic, a kind of “gradual shut-down” would be introduced. “In the meantime, I’m sure major handset makers are preparing hot offers for all the Egyptian mobile phone users that won’t be able to use their phones any more,” he said. This occurred in India after the government said security precautions were needed as support for a ban on the use of mobile phones that lacked IMEI. The move comes only one month after Egypt banned the use of Skype – the Internet phone call operator – from being used with mobile phones. It left many Egyptians frustrated that they could not access the free telephone service from their handsets. BM
