JOHANNESBURG, South Africa-South African mobile network operator Vodacom announced it has stopped the practice of “blacklisting” stolen handsets and instead has moved toward what it refers to as “greylisting.”
The blacklisting practice uses a handset’s unique identity number to bar it from use on any of the other two networks, such as MTN or Cell C. The greylisting practice was explained as a scenario where a short message service (SMS) message is sent to the alleged stolen phone informing the user that it is a stolen handset.
Vodacom reported that as many as 15,00 phones are reported stolen each month with the network. Joan Joffe, Vodacom’s corporate affairs executive, said: “We stopped blacklisting in about October (2001).” Joffe did not explain why Vodacom just now announced it had stopped blacklisting.
Rival operators MTN and Cell C have said that they will continue to blacklist stolen handsets, adding they would not look to promote a stolen phone market.
Joffe said the blacklisting has had little effect in reducing the number of stolen phones as most end up either across the borders or broken up for spare parts.
