Nigeria move to stop mobile phone theft
Abuja - The menace of mobile handset thefts in Nigeria will soon be over as the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, announced that the handset anti-theft system that would render any stolen mobile phone handset in the country useless, will come into operation before December 2008.
This will completely bar any of such phones from being used in any of the phone networks. The Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive of NCC, Engr. Ernest Ndukwe, who gave the news at the 47th Consumer Parliament held at Awka, Anambra State, also said the regulatory body had concluded plans to force down the current tariffs being charged by phone operators for Short Messaging Services (SMS), in the country so as to assist more people to communicate more easily and more cheaply.
Engr. Ndukwe, who said the issue of phone theft in the country had been of major concern to the regulator, and the anti-theft system was developed with collaboration with the mobile phone operators, and that a company had been licensed to manage the system. He said the system would require that all the mobile operators, including GSM and CDMA networks, to link their data to the system such that once a theft of any phone handset is reported, it will never work in any other network in Nigeria.
On the plans to reduce the cost of SMS which is still up to N15 in some networks, Engr. Ndukwe said the commission was looking into the matter and expected the operators to reduce the tariffs soon or the commission would do so for them.
“SMS is one of the cheapest things to offer in the network in terms of services, and many young people use this service. It is cheaper and easier and when more people use it, it will also free the networks of congestion. If the operators do not react, we will react. We will probably put a sealing on this service”, he said.
Source: Nigerian Tribune
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