Telecommunication regulator, Communication Commission of Kenya (CCK) will conduct consumer awareness campaign on counterfeit phones starting next month.
This comes less than four months to the newly set deadline when blocking of fake phones will be done. Last month the commission announced April 30 as the official deadline for subscribers to do away with counterfeit mobile phones.
CCK acting Director General, Dr. Francis Wangusi said this will be the final shift of deadlines after two subsequent shifts of deadlines from what the commission attributed to lack of awareness by consumers on detecting fake phones and lack of enough time for the industry to establish a mechanism for the confirmation of status the devices. He said enough resources to undertake the campaign are being addressed to cushion further delays.
“We do not anticipate any delays at all as we are set for the switch off by the end of April, We expect to conduct the campaign in February,” said Wangusi.
“Discussions are on going to address the funding of the campaign, we have a budgetary allocation set as mandated,” he added without mentioning how much has been allocated for the campaign.
The war against counterfeit phones started August last year when the Commission announced intentions to switch off the counterfeits. This sparked fears among the subscribers who have up to date breathed two consecutive times following the subsequent shift of deadlines.
Regulatory concerns are also on the spotlight in the war against fake phone devices, attributed to losses of revenues for genuine mobile devices manufacturers.
The move also comes at a time when the commission is on spotlight over another awareness campaign on the digital broadcasting migration that the commission is yet to start.
Wangusi denied that public awareness on digital shift has failed, reiterating that it has been put on hold to await the national roll out of signal distribution infrastructure and the local availability of DVB-T2 compliant set-top boxes.
“These two issues are being addressed at the moment. Once they are addressed, the campaign shall be rolled out as production work was concluded long time ago,” said Wangusi.
