KATHMANDU, JUN 26 -The Equipment Identity Register (EIR) is yet to be implemented in the telecom sector three years after the government planned to enforce it. The Nepal Telecom-munications Authority (NTA) has been blaming telecom companies for the failure.
The EIR requires telecom companies to save and control the International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI), a unique number that is given to each mobile phone by the manufacturer. It is designed to prevent illegal call bypass, use of cell phones in criminal activities, theft of handsets and import of poor quality products.
In 2010, the Prime Minister’s Office had ordered the Ministry of Information and Communications and the NTA to implement the EIR system at the earliest. Last year, the NTA issued a directive to telecom companies to put it into action. However, phone companies have been ignoring the order and the NTA has never bothered to follow it up either. A senior ministry official said that reluctance on the part of telecom companies and phone dealers and the NTA’s inefficiency were to blame for the EIR not happening. “The regulation also promotes use of quality handsets imported through legal channels and approved by the NTA,” added the official.
Under the EIR, telecom companies can mark an IMEI as being invalid if a set is stolen or is not type approved, which will prevent it from being used. The system allows operators to verify the IMEIs, blacklist a device or trace illegal users. The EIR also helps to make compensation claims in case of injury or death due to a faulty mobile set.
Meanwhile, state-owned telecom giant Nepal Telecom (NT) said that the EIR would be implemented for new mobile lines to be distributed under its 10 million lines project. “We included the EIR feature in the project after the government said that there should be a registration system,” said NT spokesperson Guna Kesari Pradhan. She added that the EIR would first be applied to mobile lines in Kathmandu and then expanded to other phones across the country.
The NTA has also eased the paperwork for getting type approval certification (TAC) for imports and sales of mobile sets. However, despite a surge in sales and number of users, the NTA has not made serious attempts to enforce the EIR or stop uncertified products from reaching the market.
NTA Deputy Director Min Prasad Aryal said Ncell had reported that “almost all its systems were ready” to implement the EIR. “NT and United Telecom said that technical problems in their old networks prevented them from applying the system,” he added.
Aryal said that the NTA had planned to prepare an extensive guideline to implement the EIR in this fiscal year, but it did not happen due to the absence of the NTA chairman as it involved making policy related decisions.
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