Tech Mahindra, Microsoft enable robust ecosystem to fight spam calls menace

To mitigate the issues of unsolicited commercial communication (UCC) in the country, Tech Mahindra and on Monday announced its collaboration with Microsoft to create a Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) for an ecosystem in line with the regulations issued by TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India).

Based on Blockchain technology and built on Microsoft Azure, the solution will aim to bring all the relevant parties in the ecosystem onto blockchain, helping telecom service providers and telemarketers take care of preference registration, consent acquisition, dynamic preference setting, stakeholder on-boarding, header registration, template registration, scrubbing service, and complaint handling and tracking - which are in line with the tenets of the TRAI regulation.

As per TRAI, UCC or spam calls are a major nuisance to telecom subscribers across the country and has been working with stakeholders to curb this menace.

The regulatory authority had established a "Do Not Disturb" (DND) registry in 2010, however, while the registry has more than 23 crore subscribers, unregistered telemarketers continue to spam customers, obtaining their consent through fraudulent tactics.

The solution by Tech Mahindra and Microsoft will jointly work with TRAI on this issue since the time this regulation was being formally structured and have designed this solution post a series of collective sessions with the regulator and multiple stakeholders in the value chain.

"This Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT)-based solution will enable enterprises to stop financial frauds and perpetration of misleading financial information by unregistered telecom marketers who rampantly use the SMS service of Telcos," said Global Practice Leader, Blockchain, Tech Mahindra, Rajesh Dhuddu.

"Tech Mahindra is focused to solve real business problems of our customers and partner ecosystem by investing in next gen technologies like Blockchain under the TechMNxt charter," added Rajesh Dhuddu.

"With a Microsoft Azure blockchain-powered solution, we will ensure that we mitigate loopholes used by fraudsters and spammers to reach end users. Microsoft believes blockchain has significant potential to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse from markets of all types," said National Tech Officer, Microsoft India, Prashant Shukla.

He added that the ambition of Microsoft India is to provide blockchain technology that drives real, long-term and sustainable business, economic and social value for the world.