No more pesky calls from Sept 27

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has said the regulations to curb the menace of pesky calls and SMSes have to be implemented from September 27.

Subscribers who have registered with the National Customer Preference Registry (earlier known as the Do Not Call Registry or DNCR) would get relief from all commercial communications, Trai said in its notification on Monday.

The department of telecommunications (DoT) had allocated the ‘140’ series of numbers for both mobile and fixed line networks, to help users recognise commercial calls. Any call that comes from a number beginning with ‘140’ will be a commercial call and the customer has the choice of receiving or not receiving the call, which means a customer who chooses not to register at all would also have a choice.

In December last year, Trai had come out with a new set of recommendations, as the earlier DNCR system did not meet much success. Due to various issues, the regulator had extended the deadline for implementing the service thrice, from January 1 to January 31, then to March 1 and again to April. Now, it wants the operators to implement it from September 27.

Trai had suggested a penalty of up to Rs 2.5 lakh on erring telemarketing companies. Earlier, the penalty amount was fixed at Rs 500-1,000. Besides, it had put restrictions on SMSes to 100 per day. However, citing issues related to technical and network upgradation, operators had told Trai that they would need four to six months for putting the system in place.

No commercial communication, even for unregistered customers, are to be sent between 9 pm and 9 am. The subscriber may choose to be under the 'Fully Blocked' category, akin to the DNCR. The user can also choose the 'Partially Blocked' category, in which case he or she would receive SMSes in the categories chosen by him. Trai has identified seven categories — banking and financial products, real estate, education, health, consumer goods, automobiles, communication and entertainment, tourism and leisure.

However, transactional messages such as messages from banks/insurance companies or telecom service providers, giving information relating to their customers’ accounts, or from airlines/railways to their passengers regarding flight/train schedules, will be out of the ambit of the new regulations. There are 850 million mobile and 34 million fixed line subscribers.

Cellular Operators Association of India director general Rajan S Mathews said all service providers are ready to implement the revised guidelines on mobile networks as per the deadline given by the Trai, but it will be a big challenge on landline phones.