The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and CTIA are joining forces with the police departments of major cities to foil the aftermarket for smartphones by rendering them (the phones, not the major cities) worthless when stolen.

The groups announced a four-step initiative Tuesday morning to stem smartphone crime, which New York Senator Charles Schumer says accounts for 42 percent of all robberies. The initiative so far has support from the big four wireless operators in the U.S., Verizon Wireless , AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T), Sprint Corp. (NYSE: S) and T-Mobile US Inc. , as well as rural Kansas operator Nex-Tech Wireless .

The four steps include:

Why this matters
Smartphone robberies have grown to be a serious problem -- surpassing even Air Jordan mania, as outlined by a number of police chiefs and commissioners at Tuesday's press conference. As Schumer put it, smartphones -- at $600 a pop -- are catnip for criminals, which is even more dangerous considering the personal information stored on the phone.

"What we're announcing here today will make a stolen cell phone about as worthless an empty wallet," Schumer said of the initiative. But, as an audience member pointed out in the question-and-answer period, it does have its limitations. Namely, operator's databases of unique identifying numbers for phones won't interoperate at launch, so a thief may be able to alter the IMEI number or pop in a new SIM and try again elsewhere.

Right now, it is not illegal to do so, but legislation has been proposed to make it illegal to tamper with a phone's IMEI number. Christopher Guttman-McCabe, the CTIA's VP of regulatory affairs, also said the goal is to eventually link CDMA and GSM carrier databases, as well as link them with others internationally, so stolen phones can't be taken out of the country. But in the interest of getting a solution to market quickly, it will start out bifurcated between CDMA and GSM carriers.

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— Sarah Reedy, Senior Reporter, Light Reading Mobile