July 11th, 2005
Blacklisted Handsets
Fascinating stuff… I have no idea if they’re doing this in the US, but its good to know:
If you are unfortunate enough to either lose or even worse have your phone stolen you should report it to your service provider (your network) immediately! Your service provider can then blacklist the handset so that it can no longer be used to make or receive any calls. The networks do this by adding your phones serial number onto a national blacklist database (Central Equipment Identity Register). Effectively the handset becomes absolutely useless and the thief is in possession of a pretty paper weight!