Answering Every Question You Have About IMEI Numbers

Re:Answering Every Question You Have About IMEI Numbers by thedougd on Tuesday April 30, 2024 @08:01PM (#40217971)

Many a year ago, when the iPhone was new and Android was on version 1.6. Sprint offered the SERO plan, an unlimited plan for friends and family. When smartphones hit, they would no longer allow the SERO unlimited plan to transfer to the new phones.

The HTC phones had a Qualcomm radio that, with the right tooling, one could write all 0s to the IMEI (or the CDMA equivalent) register. Then you could write any IMEI to the register. That worked well for a few years.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Answering Every Question You Have About IMEI Numbers by sfx2000 on Tuesday April 30, 2024 @08:24PM (#40218112)

SERO was one of the Sprint Rate Plans, the other was the Pioneer Plan for early adopters on SprintPCS

HTC got into a bit of trouble with the carriers on the whole IMEI/MEID rewrite mess at the end of the day. With Qualcomm, that was an NVITEM that was supposed to be read-only.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Answering Every Question You Have About IMEI Numbers by m463 on Tuesday April 30, 2024 @08:34PM (#40218188)

didn't I read recently about some manufacturer that shipped many of its phones with the same imei?

EDIT: "Over 13,000 Vivo phones found to be using same IMEI number"

https://www.techradar.com/news/over-13000-vivo-phones-found-...

[ Parent | on HN ]