Hi,

My family and I have been using galaxy s2 for more than two years now, and recently been having trouble with vodafone network. It simply keeps going into "emergency only" mode where no txts or calls can be made or received unless rebooted. When rebooted, it works for a while then again goes into the "emergency only" mode.

I couldn't figure out why this was happening (tried switching sims and talked to vodafone reps). However, through internet research I found out that our handsets have generic IMEI numbers (004999010640000). We bought the handsets from eBay which may have something to do with it. 

I've read articles online that many overseas mobile networks block this generic IMEI numbers for security reasons and I suspect that Vodafone NZ is now starting to do the same thing.
I just wanted to confirm if there are people out there experiencing the same problem as me. 

A vast number of mobile phones in NZ used to be cheap chinese phones or knockoffs. They are typically manufactured at low cost. Instead of individually using differing IMEI for each phone they often cut corners and cost by using the same generic IMEI number on all phones. It would have been nice of Vodafone to implement some kind of measures that ensure users with non-stolen phones to keep using the network instead of blocking them all. 

Oh well, I guess I will just have to move to 2degrees for now.