Telcos welcome new Trai guidelines to check pesky calls

Mobile service providers today welcomed the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (Trai) new guidelines for cracking down on unsolicited telemarketing calls and SMSes. But indicated that keeping to the January 1, 2011, deadline for compliance would be a challenge. "The Trai guidelines are in appropriate direction, giving customers a tool in hand to take or not to take a call. But we have to look at the implementation part of the regulations under the given timeframe," Rajan S Mathews, the director general of Cellular Operators's Association of India, said. Trai has said a penalty of up to Rs 2.50 lakh will be imposed for violation of the telemarketing guidelines, which could be followed by blocking repeat offenders' connections.

"Idea seems to be good, but now we have to see the implementation of the regulation under the provided timeframe. This is good with the consumer point of view," said Dilip Sahay, an Advisor at Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India. The new guidelines will come into effect from January 1, 2011.

A different set of numbers starting with '70' will be issued to telemarketers so that any unregistered subscribers can identify commercial calls and decide whether to accept or reject them.

Unlike the previous guidelines, which only provided for a 'Do Not Call' Registry, the regulations issued today give customers different options to avoid unsolicited calls.

The subscriber can now choose to be listed under the "fully blocked" category - which is akin to the 'Do Not Call' Registry - or the "partially blocked" category, in which case he will only receive SMSs in the categories chosen by him.

Trai has identified seven categories for telemarketing calls, including banking and financial products, real estate, education, health, consumer goods and automobiles, communication and entertainment, tourism and leisure.