Siget Probes Operators over Stolen Cell Phone Activation Claims

El Salvador's telecommunications regulator Siget is investigating allegations that one of the country's five mobile operators is allowing customers to activate stolen cell phones, local daily La Prensa reported.

Siget head Jorge Nieto expects the report to be ready on Saturday (Apr 29), he told representatives of Central American telecoms regulators at a trade meeting in El Salvador last week. The regulators met to discuss the best means of controlling the phenomenon in the region, particularly through the use of a common software program.

The software would allow regulators to share databases of stolen cell phones in each country.

The official estimates of the number of stolen phones jumped surprisingly from 8,000 in a report dated March 30 to 27,698 on April 19.

Speaking to the newspaper, an anonymous source from the regulator attributed the huge difference to the fact that one of the operators, which cannot be named, had been refusing to deliver numbers and only did so under pressure.

According to the latest figures Movistar (Telefónica Móviles) has reported the largest amount stolen, at 13,055, followed by CTE Personal (América Móvil) with 7,955 and Telemóvil (Millicom) with 5,116.

Digicel, which uses software that automatically identifies phones on the "blacklist," has reported 1,415 stolen while Intelfon has reported 157 missing.

Nonetheless, official Siget figures show that only 3,253 stolen cell phones have been deactivated.

Siget believes that stolen phones from one company are activated by another operator by changing the SIM card.

BNamericas.com"

Posted to the site on 25th April 2006