Page 48 - bne_Magazine_March_2018

48 I Eurasia bne March 2018
Iran will disconnect smuggled mobile phones by March 21
bne IntelliNews
Iran’s deputy minister of Communi- cations and Information Technol- ogy announced that all smuggled phones not officially registered with the Communications Regulatory Authority (CRA) would be disconnected by the Persian New Year (March 21) with no exceptions, according to Iran Labour News Agency on February 12.
Hossein Fallah Joshaghani, the dep-
uty minister and Director of the CRA, announced an initial testing phase of several non-represented brands starting on December 5, including Google, Black- berry and Apple which were barred from the three leading carriers MTN-Irancell, Mobile Communications of Iran (MCI), and Rightel.
The head said there were no faults in the free registry scheme and the
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deactivation of mobiles not logged on the official list by the December 5 cut- off will ultimately make the smuggled phones become redundant and worthless to the owners.
Asian cellphone giants in for hit
Joshaghani said all brands including famous Chinese and Korean names like
uted in the country, holding a 53% and 32% share of the market or 17.8mn and 11.2mn users respectively.
However, Samsung may face stricter penalties following a faux pas by PyeongChang Winter Olympic officials last week, who initially refused to give Iranian Olympians a limited edition
“All smuggled phones not officially registered with the Communications Regulatory Authority (CRA) would be disconnected by the Persian New Year”
Samsung and Huawei would be added to the list in the next month. Those two brands constitute the most significant share of Android smartphones distrib-
$1,000 Galaxy S8 handset, due to ongo- ing US sanctions against the country.
That mistake, in turn, caused social