Trai issued 26 orders for fines on pesky calls in 2017

Trai issued 26 orders imposing fines of over Rs 2.81 crore for unsolicited commercial calls and pesky messages last year, the telecom regulator said today.

In its summary of activities for 2017, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) also said that it issued 50 orders over non-compliance of service quality norms and for delay in submission of compliance reports of service quality, in all amounting to Rs 4.7 crore. These were in the areas of 2G, 3G, broadband offerings and basic services, it added.

"During the year, Trai issued 32 show cause notices to broadband service providers for not meeting the benchmarks of Quality of Service (QoS) and 10 show cause notices for delay in submission of compliance report for broadband services or for not meeting the broadband QoS benchmarks, 10 showcause notices were issued to telecom service providers for not meeting the QoS benchmarks for basic services," Trai said in the 'report on activities' released today.

Similarly, 33 show cause notices were issued to 2G services and 14 notices for 3G services.

"In response to the...show cause notices during the year, 50 orders towards non-compliance of QoS regulations and towards delay in submission of compliance reports of QoS regulations have been issued," Trai report added.

On the unsolicited commercial communication, Trai said that in response of show cause notices that were issued in January, February, April, June, and November 2017, "26 orders of financial disincentive were issued for an amount of Rs 281.645 lakhs".

The show cause notices were issued against telecom operators including Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and Vodafone in various months of last year, the report added.