285 Cell Phones A Day Blocked In Costa Rica

Losing your cell phone can be a stressful even, not so much for the phone itself, but if you are like most of us, for the data (telephone numbers and photos) that were never downloaded.



On the positive side, a lost or stolen cellular phone in Costa Rica is no value to anyone else in Costa Rica or around most of the world thanks to an agreement with the GSMA, a company that unites more than 800 mobile operators around the world.

According to the Superintendencia de Telecomunicaciones (Sutel) - the telecom regulator in Costa Rica - an average of 285 cell phones a day are either lost or stolen.

Notification of the lost or stolen cell phone to one's operator allows for a complete block of the unit by way of the IMEI, a unique identification number of each and every cellular phone in the world.

The agreement was signed by the Sutel with the GSMA last April. George Miley, a Sutel's board member and former head, said "I am very pleased of our work on sensitive issues such as the theft of phones".

Cell phones have always been a target of thieves, usually for the calling power up to and until the phone was reported stolen or lost of the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE), the sole provider of cellular phone service in Costa Rica until last December.

In the past the value of the cell phone was not the most important for thieves. A thief or finder of a lost of cell phone would target the use of the phone to make international calls, expensive in the past, until the owner noticed it missing. And then the service would not be cut after termination of any ongoing call, which meant a thief could run up a hefty long distance bill even if the report was immediate.

Today, the target of thieves is not the calling power per se, but the value of the equipment. Smartphones, like the recently released Samsung Galaxy III sells in Costa Rica for ˘480.000 colones or almost US$1.000.

Blocking the phone and rendering it useless to thieves or someone finding on a mall bench, for example, will not help you get the phone back or the equipment. Or your telephone numbers and those "dirty" photos that we all carry in them, either admitted or not.

some phones like the iPhone have a "find my iPhone" app that helps you locate your lost phone. But, both the lost phone has to have the app installed and it must be turned on to be located.

The best way to avoid having your cell phone stolen is to carry the cheapest and ugliest model you can find. Not only will it not be stolen, you will probably find it on the mall bench if you left it there accidentally.