Dial *315# before buying phones, NCC tells Nigerians

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has urged Nigerians to verify their phones using the code *315# before paying for them, warning that unverified devices could be counterfeit or substandard.

The commission’s Director of Technical Standards and Network Integrity, Edoyemi Ogoh, said the verification process would protect consumers from buying fake devices and help prevent substandard handsets from affecting network service quality for other users.

“Before you buy a phone, dial *315# and confirm that the phone is fully verified before you pay,” Mr Ogoh said.

He spoke on Friday during an interview on News Night on Arise News, explaining the NCC’s new Device Checker, which took effect on 7 October.

Why the NCC introduced the check

Mr Ogoh gave three reasons for the verification process: compliance with the law, consumer protection and improved service quality.

He said the Nigerian Communications Act 2003 requires telecommunications equipment to undergo type approval to ensure it meets the country’s standards.

“The whole intent of that is to ensure that every device coming into the country is genuine and works the way it should work,” he said.

The second reason, he said, is to protect consumers from paying for counterfeit or imitation products.

“When you’re spending your hard-earned money buying a particular device, you want to be sure that the device you’re buying is actually the genuine device,” he said.

“You’re not paying over the odds for a device that is fake or an imitation of the real thing.”

The third reason is service quality. According to Mr Ogoh, the NCC’s assessments found that a significant proportion of complaints about network service were linked to the devices consumers used.

“We knew that we had to do something very important, in line with the statutory requirement, protecting the consumers, as well as ensuring that quality of service is assured for every user,” he said.

He stressed that the effects of using unapproved devices could extend beyond their owners to other subscribers in the same environment.

“When consumers use devices that are not type approved, it does not just impact them, it also impacts others within the same environment,” he said.

“We’ve seen scenarios where a subscriber was having a quality of service issue, and it was actually attributable to the device the person was using.”

A failed check does not necessarily mean a phone is fake

Mr Ogoh said a phone’s failure to pass the Device Checker does not automatically mean it is counterfeit.

“Not necessarily,” he said when asked whether a failed check meant a device was fake.

He explained that the process involves two stages: type approval of a phone model and verification of each individual device.

Type approval involves laboratory tests to establish whether a phone model meets Nigerian standards and can function properly on service providers’ networks.

“Once that phone is switched on, it can connect to the service provider’s networks and can actually talk properly,” he said, adding that the approval is conducted once for each model.

The second stage involves verifying individual units of an approved model.

“Someone can type approve a particular model, and about 100,000 units of that model can be brought into the country,” he said.

“So each particular unit is now meant to be assured.”

Mr Ogoh said importers and other parties responsible for bringing devices into the country must register their International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) numbers on the NCC’s system.

“It’s only when that process is done that we can say the full end-to-end process for verification is completed,” he said.

He said importers, manufacturers and vendors were responsible for completing the process, not buyers.

“It’s not for buyers to carry it out,” he said.

What about phones bought before 7 October?

Mr Ogoh said owners of phones that were already active on Nigerian networks before 7 October do not need to take any action.

“Every single device that was active on the networks at midnight on October 6th was fully onboarded and verified,” he said.

“We had about 231 million devices. So they are verified.”

The enhanced verification process applies to devices arriving in the country from 7 October, he said. Such devices must be checked for type approval and registered on the Device Checker system.

Mr Ogoh also said phones identified as cloned before the new system took effect would not be blocked under the new process.

“Prior to October 7, the device checker was not in place in terms of requiring Nigerians to check before they buy,” he said.

“We’re not going to punish them to say, ‘You bought something fake, take it out.’ So those phones are fine.”

He did not explain what action the commission would take against a newly imported device confirmed to be cloned. He urged prospective buyers to check a device’s verification status before making payment.

NCC addresses privacy concerns

Addressing concerns about privacy, Mr Ogoh said the Device Checker uses only a phone’s IMEI to establish its verification status.

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“We don’t know that a particular device belongs to you from you dialling that, because the only information that is utilised is just the IMEI,” he said.

“We don’t have access to your communications. We don’t know your contacts, your messages or anything that you stored.”

He said the system was designed solely to establish whether a device was genuine and properly verified.

“It’s purely to verify the genuineness or otherwise of the device,” he said.

According to him, a verified phone is genuine and should function as designed.

“You are not going to get surprises,” he said.

Consumers can dial *315# to check a phone’s verification status. The NCC’s consumer complaint line is 622.

The commission has also warned consumers to use only the official *315# code and its website for device verification. It cautioned them against sharing one-time passwords or verification codes with sellers or callers.