Trai to again meet telecom firms next week to end spam call menace

Discussion will seek to end unsolicited communication using technology, regulations

The telecom regulator will meet companies and other stakeholders on March 27 to discuss spam calls, making it the third such discussion since February.

The meeting by P D Vaghela, the chairman of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, is part of a multi-pronged approach to end unsolicited commercial communication (UCC) using technology, regulations, directions, and monitoring, said Trai on Wednesday.

Officials told Business Standard the meeting will review earlier discussions and aim to formulate a framework for sharing UCC data on distributed ledger technology (DLT) platforms, which are used by telecom companies for keeping and managing the records of sender IDs and templates.

Businesses have to register on DLTs by submitting their details to get access to exclusive headers and message templates, or keywords denoting a business or brand that pops up when a phone user receives a message.

The problem often starts when businesses, legally classified as principal entities, purchase bulk short messaging service (SMS) from a telemarketer to send text messages to its clients and customers. Telemarketers have to be registered on the DLT platform.

Trai last month cracked down on telemarketing firms that spam message inboxes and asked telecom service providers (TSP) to scrub their DLT platforms clean and block unverified telemarketer accounts. The regulator said entities involved in message transmission should be identifiable and tracked, if required.

Blocking spam

'Business Standard' reported last month Trai is trying out a host of technologies to curb the problem, with digital content authorisation (DCA) emerging as the favourite.

DCA will take customers’ consent for the brands or companies they would like to receive communication from and will also expedite the process of receiving consumer consent on DLTs. It is expected to be rolled out first on a pilot basis in another two months, officials said.

On Wednesday, Trai said the implementation of DCA will be discussed at the upcoming meeting.

The proposal to launch DCA also had the backing of the Joint Committee of Regulators (JCOR), an inter-ministerial body set up last year to frame a plan to curb spam and frauds using telecom resources.

Trai is also testing a “UCC detect system” and intelligent scrubbing—it will use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine language (ML)—of the DLT platform. Updates of the 'regulatory sandbox' established for UCC Detect will also be discussed in the March 27 meeting.