Finding ICCID Or IMSI Code Of Your Telenor SIM Without SIM Jacket Or Any Other Data

Finding ICCID Or IMSI Code Of Your Telenor SIM  Without SIM Jacket Or Any Other Data

From Retailers To Franchises To Head Offices.. The Woes Of A Citizen Trying To Get His SIM Verified Bio-Metrically In Pakistan..

This article will be helpful for those people who :

1. Have a Telenor SIM for bio-metric verification and change of ownership
2. The SIM is not already in their name i.e they are not the real owners of the SIM
3. They have no way of finding the real owner
4. They have cut their SIM into a micro/nano SIM for use with newer phones
5. They have also lost the jacket of the SIM or they don't have access to it

If you have the time and more importantly, the ability to imagine the above mentioned paradox, you will know that if you fulfill all the above conditions, you are in serious risk of getting your SIM blocked (thanks to PTA) unless you have the time and patience to locate Telenor's Sales and Services Center (which I didn't have) and pray that they can help you.

So read through this exciting adventure which involves a cluster of problems and how to avoid all the trouble that I went through.

So I have a Telenor SIM which I rarely use and a few weeks ago I learned that after 12th of April 2015 all unverified SIMs will be blocked as regulated by PTA. No worries right? I painfully get out of bed one fine morning and approach a local retailer for the said purpose. The retailer welcomes me with a smile, not knowing what lies ahead. 

So I tell him the MSISDN (the number of the SIM 0343xxxxxxx) and my CNIC No. without a hitch. Immediately after that he demands the "jacket" of the SIM and I politely reply with "bhai wo to kab ki gum gai" assuming that he'd have a quick solution to that. But Mr.Retailer coldly hands over the SIM to me stating that if I don't have the jacket I will have to go to the franchise and that he cant help me. WOW I say to myself and I ask the reason, to which he explains to me about a certain number called the "ICCID" which was written on the jacket of my SIM. Supposedly this number is very important for bio-metric verification, and now I had no access to that number as I had lost the jacket way back in time.

I tried calling the help center and asked for the ICCID number but they refused, saying it was no longer an option. Instead they told me I should send an MNP request in an SMS which I did but in vain.

Still no worries, I take out time from my busy schedule and actually walk up to a local Telenor franchise in hopes of finding an end to this dilemma as the last date for vitrification came dangerously closer. I enter the unwelcoming office and I find 3 people behind the desk seemingly busy playing games on their phones or just having small talk. I approach one of the staff, a lady, and explain the situation. She hands over a "Call Records Verification Form" to me and I put in the last 10 dialed numbers, the SIM number and a few other details. Easy breezy yeah? Not really. After I returned the form to the lady I had to actually wait 135 painstakingly long minutes only to be told that the "system" is not verifying my call records and that I had to bring in the real owner of the SIM for ownership change and bio-metric verification. Strike two! That is what I thought because I had absolutely no idea who that person was (because I had bought the SIM way back from nowhere without an ID card).

Now what? Do I have the time or the patience to try to further rectify my mistake of not buying a SIM with proper documentation? No Sir, not at least with the help of Telenor services. At this point I realized I had to take things in my own hand and that is what I did.

I started off with basic "googling" regarding the full forms, the purpose and the importance of ICCID and IMSI codes. If I could just extract the codes from my SIM I could solve the whole problem. So I started reading in-depth articles about wireless telephony just to get an idea of what I was dealing with. After that I installed an android app called "SIM Info" on my phone which effortlessly showed a 20 digit code under the welcoming heading "ICCID". Voila! I thought. Now all I had to do was to walk back to Mr. Retailer, rather Mr. Rude-Retailer and slam the ICCID on his face and get the job done. Well thats not what actually happened. I politely gave  him the code and he put it in the mean machine. I was hoping he'd finally ask me for finger print verification but he looked at me with the same cold face and literally threw my sorry SIM card on the table stating that my ICCID was incorrect. Strike three!

Forced by my conscience I just gave him a smile and left his shop. On the way back home, I was blank, I was not sorry, I was not angry, nor did I have regret. But inside me, I knew I had to try again. This had now turned into a war. A war against the harsh policies implemented by both PTA and Telenor. Only I did not know where had I gone wrong.

So I fired up my laptop again. I read and read and read all there was about ICCIDs and IMSIs to read. I walked three times to different retailers in hopes that I had the right code each time, but all in vain. The last person I went to politely asked me not to come back and that I was mad for trying to achieve something that was simply out of my league. On the way back, I gave up. Yes, I actually gave up.I came back home and lay on my bed, quietly gazing upon the ceiling. What if Telenor uses a different standard for ICCID? Have I even looked at how a Telenor SIM ICIID appears on the jacket? So I got up, and once again walked a mile to my friend's. I did not have the patience to explain to him about the situation. So all I told him was to find his Telenor SIM card's jacket. He, who knew me better, did not ask any questions and returned after several minutes with his SIM card jacket. I studied the mean object and there it was, a 19-digit code printed beneath a bar-code. 19 digits... I thought. I thanked my dear friend and walked a couple more miles to a place that had now taken the first place in my "most frightening places" list i.e Mr.SIM-throwing-cold Retailer's shop.

The moment he saw my face, he signaled me not to enter his shop. I was devastated but I politely ignored the signal and greeted him with a warm salaam. Before he could say anything rude or throw things on the table, I looked into his eyes and word by word, I stated in a slow pace : "Mujhe aik dafa gaur se daikhen. Kya mei aap ko aisa lagta hun k mujhe apny kaam k liey kisi se iltija karni parti ho gi? Lekin mei aap se iltija kar raha hun, aik akhri dafa koshish karen." Off-course I could just have chosen a different retailer but there was this fire that I had to get rid of. He looked at me and quietly turned the face of the mean machine towards me. I knew the drill. I punched in my details and finally came the moment of entering the ICCID. With Mr.Retailer observing, I punched in the numbers, carefully omitting the last of the 20 digits, closed my tired eyes, and pressed "NEXT".

3 seconds later, the retailer started patting my back and I knew. I knew I had won the war. I had, out of nowhere, won the war. I was not given the time to smile or to cherish that moment, for the retailer quickly prompted me to put my right thump on the scanner for finger print scanning. It was done. I was now the legal owner of this SIM.

You might be thinking what a fool Omar was, Omar could have done this, done that or simply he could have gone to the head office or a thousand other options. But this story was not about how smart I am. This story was about how foolish I am and only those people will understand who are bound by unending house chores, job pressure, college pressure and juggling all of it in a single day. Nonetheless I learned a lot about wireless telephony along the way. Sometimes the most insignificant problems teach you the biggest lessons and thankfully, I learned mine.

PS. Mr. Retailer is now a good friend of mine and he welcomes me in his shop anytime I please.. :)