New Telecom Rules: TRAI's strictness increased on spam calls and messages, fines on telecom companies also increased..

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) amended the Telecom Commercial Communication Customer Preference Regulation (TCCCPR), 2018 a few months ago. Its purpose was to curb unwanted spam calls and promotional messages. Under this, there is a provision to impose heavy fines on telecom operators who do not follow these rules.

TRAI said that the opinion of all stakeholders was taken before implementing the new rules. At the same time, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has strongly criticized these new rules, especially regarding the fines imposed on telecom companies.

COAI's objection
The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has objected to this amendment of TRAI. They have demanded strictness on telemarketers. Along with this, COAI has demanded similar strict rules for apps providing over-the-top (OTT) services. The association believes that spam calls and messages have increased rapidly from these platforms.

It is also worrying that TRAI has significantly increased the financial disincentives (FD) imposed on telecom companies. COAI believes that telecom operators only act as intermediaries, so it is unfair to impose fines on them. Instead, these penalties should be applied to telemarketers and business entities, which are the source and beneficiary of such call messages.

What do TRAI's new rules say?

TRAI has instructed telecom companies in the new rules to simplify the process of reporting spam calls. Along with this, TRAI says that 7 days should be given instead of three days to file a complaint.

Telecom operators will get only 5 days instead of 30 days to work on the complaint.

Now only 5 complaints in 10 days instead of 10 complaints in 10 days will be enough to take action against any spammer.

Telecom companies will have to give customers the option to opt out of all types of promotional messages.

To make it easier to identify the message, now tags of P - Promotional, S - Service, T - Transactional, and G - Government will be added to the header.

For telemarketing, instead of 10-digit mobile numbers, only numbers of 140 and 1600 series should be used.

TRAI's strict stance on spammers

TRAI has asked telecom companies to use SMS and call pattern analysis as well as honeypot techniques to identify potential spammers. Along with this, telecom companies will have to ensure that all messages received by users are completely traceable.

Action will be taken against spammers.

For the first-time violation, outgoing services will be stopped for 15 days.

The services of repeat offenders will be completely stopped for one year.

Penalty on telecom companies

According to the new rules of TRAI, heavy financial penalties will be imposed on telecom operators who do not follow these rules.

A fine of up to ₹ 10 lakh will be imposed for repeated violations of the rules.

Apart from this, the security deposit of telemarketers who do not follow these rules will be confiscated.

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