Selling cellphone numbers...illegally?

A Saudi telecommunications company shut down over 300,000 cellphone chips, due to their being sold on the internet at inflated prices. The people who sell the numbers will buy sometimes over 50 phone subscriptions, and then list them on the internet for a higher price. The problem is that these are prepaid subscriptions, so once a person buys a phone, he/she doesn't have to pay a bill each month, allowing for the black market in cellphones.

What's interesting about the repackaged sale of cellphones is that it shows just how sophisticated Saudi Arabia is technologically. Often, we think of prostitution and drugs coming from the country, but not much else. The use of the internet to sell cellphones shows that Saudis have access to many of the same, if not all the same, technologies as we are privy to. What's interesting is that the article doesn't speak of the government taking any action to rout out these kinds of crimes, but rather mentions the actions taken by the company to deal with the problem. It seems that there is very little regulation of any markets, especially the technology sector. It would be interesting to see the extent to which the government controls online activities as well.

I really enjoyed this brief article, in that it demonstrates how the Saudi black markets are adjusting and adapting with the times.