TRAI issues guidelines on bulk international SMSs

Trends and Developments, February 01, 2012

To put an end to the menace of unsolicited calls and messages for mobile phone users, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had implemented the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulation (TCCCPR) on September 27, 2011. The regulation was meant to stop all commercial calls or SMSs to customers registered on National Customer Preference Register (NCPR). With a limit of 200 SMSs per day per SIM, TRAI had also imposed penalties on operators and telemarketers, who violated the norms under TCCCPR.

The directive was effective initially. There was a steep decline in commercial calls and SMSs. For instance, if the earlier frequency of such SMSs were 10 in a day, it came down to almost 3 or 4 per day. However, the respite was short lived. Within a month of the regulations execution, the unsolicited messages resurfaced to inconvenience users.

The telemarketers had found a way to circumvent the regulators ruling by sending bulk SMSs through international gateways. The servers located at international destinations are now being used to send such unwanted commercial communication. These are mostly used by the unregistered telemarketers who had tied up with foreign telecom operators to route back messages to mobile users in India.

Since the TRAI directive was applicable only to local telecom operators, the international operators through which these SMSs were routed did not come under TRAI's purview and, therefore, were under no threat of being penalised.

During the past few months, TRAI reported several instances where promotional SMSs were being delivered to customers registered under NCPR. Though the intensity of these messages are not as high as it used to be, it still defeats the very purpose of issuing a regulation.

These SMSs typically contain headers which are alphanumeric or start with +91 or numbers with international codes. It was observed that most of these messages originate from locations within Germany, Sweden, Nauru, Fiji, Cambodia, Bosnia, Albania, Grenada, UK, Jersey, Sint, Maarten, Tonga, Vanuatu, Namibia, Panama, Antigua and Barbuda etc.

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TRAI issues guidelines on bulk international SMSs

Trends and Developments, February 01, 2012

After holding detailed discussions with the telemarketers, access service providers and International Long Distance (ILD) operators, TRAI has finally evolved measures to address the problem.

In line with the discussions, TRAI has issued a direction to all the access providers and the operators mandating them to block the bulk international SMSs with effect from mid January, 2012.

According to the guidelines, all international SMS containing alphabet header or alphanumeric header or +91 as originating country code should not be delivered through a service providers network. Further, the operators have been mandated that if any source or number from abroad generates more than two hundred SMS per hour with similar signature, the same should not be allowed to be delivered through the network. However, such restriction is not applicable on blackout days. Moreover, service providers have been suggested to allow only valid codes in their network. The valid codes are those which are associated with the network of entities who have signed agreements with the service providers.

The regulator believes that the implementation of this new mandate will limit the circulation of unsolicited SMSs originating from destinations abroad.

This is yet another effort by TRAI to remove the menace of unwanted messages.

Further, as a follow up to this initiative, TRAI has exempted the machine to machine and person to machine messages from the limit of 200 SMS per day per SIM under the TCCCPR. The exempted messages include those which are generated by and sent to automated technical systems and where no manual intervention is required at the receiving end. The move comes after TRAI had received representations from several stakeholders that the regulators limit on SMSs prevents them from sending messages to initiate processes or applications for their operational requirements. These include services such as providing details of driver or taxi on booking of radio cab, tentative date of delivery of goods, tentative date of attending complaint, contact details of person attending the complaint etc.

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TRAI issues guidelines on bulk international SMSs

Trends and Developments, February 01, 2012

With TRAI paying due consideration to issues and representations from various stakeholders, the telecom industry and consumers are likely to experience a major relief as far as the unwanted calls and messages are concerned.

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