As part of its plan to
crack down on pesky short messaging service (SMSs), the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has said only 100 SMSs per day per SIM card would be allowed at concessional rates.
Beyond this number, telecom service providers
cannot charge less than 50 paise per local SMS, Trai principal adviser N. Parameswaran said at a press conference here on Monday. Currently, these SMSs cost as low as 1 or 2 paise.
The new Trai order has to be implemented within 15 days, Parameswaran said adding that these measures are initial steps and more will follow. Subscribers will be able to lodge complaints if bombarded with unsolicited SMSs or calls at the toll free number 1909 from November 6.
Trai said complaints will then get uploaded on the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Portal website (http:// www. nccptrai.gov. in).
Telecom operators have also been asked to
put in place a technical solution within three months, which will ensure that no commercial SMSs are sent having the same or similar characters from any source number. Such a system will ensure that not more than 200 SMSs with such similar 'signature', character or string are sent in an hour, he said.
However, registered telemarketers, transactional message sending entities and telephone numbers exempted by Trai are excluded from this provision, Parameswaran added.
"These are the first slew of measures to contain illegal, unregistered telemarketers. Since the regulation on telemarketers came into effect in September last year, we issued notices to
over 1.33 lakh unregistered telemarketers and have disconnected over 1 lakh such connections till October 22 last month," he further added.
Telecom operators may discontinue some SMS packages and hike tariffs. But some operators like TTSL may not take such measures because they have high stakes in the SMS and telemarketing business.
Trai said that it has no mechanism to break the nexus between telecom companies and unregistered or registered telemarketers, who have a
segment-wise data bank of subscribers.
"We are in touch with top telecom company officials. They have assured us that they would put stringent measures in place in case such things are happening at the lower rung," said Parameswaran.
But the damage has been already done with massive data of mobile subscribers along with their category and profile readily available with telemarketers.
Telecom companies are required to take an undertaking in the customer acquisition form that the connection will not be used for telemarketing purpose. In case, the connection is found to be used for telemarketing purposes, it could be disconnected, Parameswaran said.
In case of violation of regulations by registered telemarketers, Trai had recommended penalty ranging between Rs 25,000 and Rs 2.5 lakh.
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