Thanks. I should have been clear I was asking what blocked meant not what IMEI meant.
So is a bad IMEI always a blocked IMEI or are there other categories of BAD? I seem to remember reading about cloned phones in the dawn of the cell phone age. Are there cloned IMEIs to allow multiple phones on one plan? I realize something eventually stopped that from working back in day but is there a new round?
And if a blocked IMEI is due to the phone being stolen does that mean whoever has it is guilty of possession of stolen property (knowingly if they know its blocked somewhere)? Is there a database of blocked/stolen IMEIs to let buyers protect themselves?
I'm interested mostly out of curiosity but my wife was originally told she could not get an unlock code from T-Mobile because her Lumia that she bought new from T-Mobile and never used on any other carrier had a blocked IMEI. They finally gave her the unlock code but never explained what "blocked" really meant.
Going off my experience with nokia bb5 and s^3 phones.
Bad Imei can also be applicable to some faulty nokia phones, which have suffered during update their firmware and their imei becomes corrupt and 12345610654321 etc,
and obviously will not work with simcards these types can usually be restored to correct former imei if you have a backup of phones rpl file and flashing hardware (note:you cannot change new nokia imei without physically changing imei chip)
And Re stolen,reported lost,non paid contacts, Blocked phones: Here in uk such reported phones IMEI numbers go on the "CEIR" (Central Equipment Identity
Register) and either refuse to register to networks or refuse to make calls or messages,excluding emergency calls ,this block is only effective if the phones are tried to be used in the uk or other countries networks that fully obide to the register.
Which sadly means lots of blocked phones just go overseas to countries networks that dont block such phones.
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