Daily Times

LAHORE: The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) started ‘type approval’ for mobile phones in December 2013, as cellular phones without or fake International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number were being widely used in criminal activities, proving to be hurdles in the maintenance of law and order across the country.

The IMEI number is issued by Spain-based trade body Global System of Mobile Association (GSMA). Billions of mobile phones of different brands being used around the world today are registered with the GSMA, and each mobile phone must have a unique IMEI number.

While recommencing type approval for mobile phones in 2013, it was decided that the PTA would ensure that mobile phones with approved IMEI were registered on the mobile networks and the operators would block other mobile phones to avoid use of the devices in terrorist activities.

Despite a lapse of three years, no system could be implemented to ensure registration of mobile phones with valid IMEI number and block devices having fake IMEI number.

It has been leant that the PTA is now trying to implement this IMEI blocking system with the name of Device Identification Registration Blocking System (DIRBS) in haste by bypassing all government rules.

It has been learnt that the PTA has not sought proposals from different companies for implementation of the DIRBS, a national-level database, and the project has been awarded to the Central Asian Cellular Forum (CACF), just like the mobile phone testing project was awarded to them.

Deployment of national-level database of DIRBS involves considerable infrastructure cost and recurring expenses in terms of operations, maintenance and upgradation of database.

A senior PTA officer on the condition of anonymity informed this scribe that the GSMA was also surprised over the development of a separate database in the form of DIRBS, because such a database had been part of the cellular mobile network since its start. This type of database is called Equipment Identity Register (EIR), which is provided by the GSM network manufacturers to the operators if they require. A Central Equipment Identity Register (CEIR) is already being maintained by the GSMA in Dublin, Ireland.

The CEIR has connectivity with the EIR of operators in different countries, and any stolen mobile phone can be blocked on all the networks connected to the CEIR.

As per opinion of a senior telecom expert, the PTA is reinventing wheel by designing database through the CACF or is “obliging” the company by giving this long-term project to them without going through any legal formalities.

He said that a national-level database is already present in the form of the Mobile Number Portability (MNP) Database, which is being maintained by all the five mobile operators, which can easily be used for this purpose.

It has been learnt that the PTA has not only outsourced the EIR database to CACF but has made four committees to execute the implementation of the EIR without going through the procedures set by the Pakistan Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA).

The four committees are: technical, legal, commercial and resource structure. No legal formalities for awarding of the project to the CACF have been given weight, as the CACF is declaring the database “a gift”. The recurring cost for maintenance and operation of database would be the responsibility of the commercial and resource structure committees, and the CACF is part of these committees obviously for commercial reasons. An officer, hired recently for a period of three years, having no experience of rolling out such national-level projects is heading all the committees. Interestingly, the case of hiring of that officer is under investigation at the National Accountability Bureau and he has already passed half the tenure of his job at the PTA.

A spokesperson for the PTA, however, said that the DIRBS project had not yet been awarded to the CACF. He said that the project would be awarded after completing legal formalities. He added that the authority had launched an inquiry to probe all these rumours, and legal action would be taken against those found guilty.