Cellphone repair shops need to register with NTC

The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) will soon require cellular phone repair shops to register with the agency as a requisite for continuing in business, in a bid to regulate services which tend to encourage mobile phone theft such as unblocking of blocked phones.

NTC Commissioner Ronald Solis told The STAR that the commission is currently drafting a memorandum circular that will require all mobile phone repair shops to register and be accredited by the NTC as a means of minimizing if not putting an end to cellphone theft.

Solis said the commission has received persistent reports that phones that have been purposely blocked by mobile phone service operators upon request of the NTC based on complaints filed by cellphone owners had been unblocked by these repair shops.

At present, a mobile phone owner can make a request with the NTC for the blocking of his phone which has been stolen simply by reporting the phone’s IMEI number (international mobile equipment identity) to the commission. The NTC in turn makes a request to the service provider (Smart, Globe, Sun Cellular, or Piltel) for the blocking of the IMEI. Once blocked, any call or text message sent to the blocked phone will not be accepted by the system.

However, Solis explained that phone repair shops have found a way to unblock a phone whose IMEI has been blocked by reconfiguring the IMEI itself. Once any of the numbers in the IMEI (put into the phone by the cellular phone manufacturer itself like Nokia or Ericsson) has been changed, the system will start accepting the calls or text messages again.

The NTC chief said that one of the conditions that will be imposed upon the repair shop for registration is that they should not engage in the changing of the IMEI.

Any repair shop that refuses to register or be accredited by the NTC will be closed down, Solis said. The NTC will be coordinating with other government agencies like the police for the enforcement of this circular, he added.

Right now, only cellphone dealers, under a circular approved sometime in 1998, are being required to accredit with the NTC for the enforcement of the appropriate warranties on the phones that they sell.

Solis admitted that right now, the NTC has no idea how many are engaged in the cellphone repair business. Because of the huge market for second-hand mobile phones in the country, one of the allied businesses that has proliferated is the repair business. There are some entities that even offer short courses in cellphone repair.

The proposed circular is expected to gain huge support from the mobile phone service operators who have also been complaining that phones that are ‘locked’ to Smart or Globe for instance can now be unlocked, which means that the phone can now accept SIMs from other operators, by these repair shops.