Mobile subscribers with non valid, IMEI handsets face possible disconnection from their respective service providers starting April 15. Operators, as reported earlier, have started issuing notifications to subscribers to switch over to a valid IMEI handset or face disconnection as per DoT directive.

The issue of non-valid IMEI handsets gained momentum amidst the terrorist attacks faced by the country and the emergence that such handsets maybe used by terrorists to evade detection by mobile monitoring.

Government security agencies had pointed out to the DoT to act aginst use of such handsets. DoT had then taken up the issue with the operators asking them to identify such handsets and disconnect them from their network.

The operators’ lobby hand then sought more time so that it could ask its subscribers to switch over to valid IMEI handsets. COAI additionally recommended the use of a software mechanism to allow use of such handsets.

Such non-valid handsets are predominantly Chinese-made and appealing to the low-end category of users because of their value for money proposition. About 25 million subscribers are estimated to be connected through such kind of handsets. The problem is limited only to GSM services domain.