Differences between IMEI and MEID

The IMEI or MEID number for your mobile phone acts as a unique identifier for that device. No two devices will have the same IMEI or MEID, which makes it a very useful tool for tracking lost or stolen cell phones. You can quickly retrieve and record your phone's IMEI or MEID number in a variety of different ways, depending on your device. Look at this article and check what IMEI and MEID are, how to check it, and what you can use it for!

What is an IMEI number?

IMEI number means International Mobile Equipment Identity and it is an individual code of every phone. It consists of fifteen digits and is used to identify the device over a mobile network. This number has many purposes, such as identifying the manufacturer or checking if anyone has ever reported the theft. IMEI numbers can also blacklist devices to keep them from working, making them useless in case of theft.

Here are some methods to check an IMEI number:

the easiest is just entering *#06# on your phone's call screen,
on the silver sticker on the back of your phone, under the battery pack,
on the box, your phone came in,
you can also find it in your phone settings.

What is MEID?

Mobile Equipment Identifier (MEID) is also commonly known as an Electric Serial Number (ESN). Mobile Equipment Identifier is a globally unique 56 bits number identifying a physical piece of CDMA mobile station equipment. Equipment identifiers are ‘burned’ into a device, and should be resistant to modification.

We can distinguish two standard formats for MEIDs identifier, and both may contain an optional check-digit:

Hexadecimal Form – this standard is expressed in 14 digits grouped together and applies whether all digits are in the decimal range or whether some are from the range A - F. When the all elements are from '0'-'9' range than the check-digit is converted by using the normal base 10 Luhn algorithm. In the second case when at least one digit is A - F range the check-digit algorithm uses base 16 arithmetic.
Decimal Form – this standard is converted by changing the manufacturer 32-bits code to decimal and padding on the left with '0' digits to 10 digits and separately converting the serial number to decimal and afterwards padding on the left to 8 digits. A check-digit can be converted from the 18 digit result using the base 10 Luhn algorithm and appended to the end. The decimal form is specified by 18 digits grouped in a 5 5 4 4 pattern.

What's the difference between MEID and IMEI numbers?

All phones don't always have both an IMEI or MEID number. An IMEI number is always on GSM system devices and a MEID number is always on CDMA devices.
IMEI has a 14-digit number while MEID has a 15-digit number.
The location of MEID and IMEI numbers can be different depending on the phone type and manufacturer.