Deadline to save Chinese handsets extended till June 30

If you use Chine mobile handsets bought from grey market, chances are you are among 30 million subscribers who do not have a unique identification number called IMEI on your phone. Your connection, therefore, would have been disconnected on March 31.

If you use Chine mobile handsets bought from grey market, chances are you are among 30 million subscribers who do not have a unique identification number called IMEI on your phone. Your connection, therefore, would have been disconnected on March 31.

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Now, that date has been extended to June 30. You can go to any of the 10 centres in Delhi opened by Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), the GSM mobile industry association, and can get IMEI implanted on it.

This is a requirement of security agencies, which need IMEI number for tracking a mobile user. COAI said that it would have about 2,000 such centres all over the country by June 30.

A customer can go to any of these centres and get the IMEI number loaded in five minutes, COAI director general TV Ramachandran said. The cost: Rs 180.

“Customers have bought these handsets in good faith,” Ramachandran said.

“When they bought mobile phones they did not know that these phones do not have IMEI numbers. They should not be punished for their innocence.”