RI Government plans cell-phone restriction

[davita]

Can some techies help me understand.
I read that the Gov't intends demanding telcom co's block cell phones that are not registered in Indonesia.
What does that mean...will it mean that telcom Co's can, like USA and Canada, sell product only available on their network.....or that ALL mobile devices, not purchased in Indonesia, be blocked?
If the latter.....how will tourists be able to use their mobile devices?
Could this be another 'shoot myself in the foot' typical Indonesian way of managing?

 

[ferdie]

Its just Gita's way to pleased his sponsors:icon_lol:

I f he wants too, he can always catch the big smugglers that bypass the customs

 

[ronb]

I don't about the background of this particular announcement. But terrorists have used hand-phones as one way of detonating devices - they make a call, so need a working SIM card in the phone receiving the call. Governments in many countries have enacted regulations to make people register their identity when purchasing SIM cards. Indonesia has done this, but there would seem to be many ways around it. Phone companies are maybe letting any SIM card operate on their network as long as they have been paid. The government apparently wants to tighten this, so if the phone company does not have the registration info, they should not provide a service to the SIM card.

You say

What does that mean...will it mean that telcom Co's can, like USA and Canada, sell product only available on their network.....or that ALL mobile devices, not purchased in Indonesia, be blocked?
If the latter.....how will tourists be able to use their mobile devices?

They are talking about SIM cards, not phones. So if a tourist is using global roaming, their SIM card is presumably registered in their home country. If they buy a SIM card here, they will need to use their passport when registering it.

 

[ferdie]

They are talking about SIM cards, not phones. So if a tourist is using global roaming, their SIM card is presumably registered in their home country. If they buy a SIM card here, they will need to use their passport when registering it.

I'm afraid the base of this one is on the IMEI numbers, so it is on the phone.
If the IMEI is not registered, the SIM access might be blocked

 

[davita]

Sorry ronb your post is not how I interpreted the new proposal.
They are attacking the smuggling of mobile devices by requiring the IMEI of the device to be registered. This would, in my humble knowledge, exclude all visitors from using their mobile devices ....period. But I ask the question...is this correct?

 

[ronb]

Sorry, I posted before I read the Jakarta Post story. The article is at ?Cellular blockage? could hurt customers | The Jakarta Post

The motivation is not security, but revenue from registration fees.

“The fee for each IMEI registration is Rp 500,000. Multiplying this by 70 million amounts to Rp 35 trillion in losses, not to mention unaccounted losses from the 10 percent value added tax,” he said.

So Trade Minister Gita Wirjawan wants to identify phones that have been sold in Indoneisa without this regstration fee being paid. This would depend on manufacturers (Samsung, Apple, Huawei, etc) being able to identify which IMEI numbers were on phones that were sold through Indonesian outlets. I suspect this is a big ask. So my guess is that like other things that announced in Indonesia (like a single time zone across the country, or a 2-tiered petrol pricing arrangement), this one will turn out to be too hard to implement and won't happen.