Submit monthly data on spam complaints, Trai tells telecom companies

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has also made it clear that all access providers will be required to submit a performance monitoring report on a monthly basis, as opposed to the previous quarterly reporting cycle. As part of two directions announced on Monday, TRAI also mandated telcos to enhance their mobile apps and web portals to make them more user-friendly for registration of spam complaints and setting of preferences.

Spam is classified as “unsolicited commercial communication” (UCC), usually sent by unregistered telemarketers (UTMs). TRAI classifies any sender of commercial communication, who is not officially registered as a telemarketing partner with telecom companies such as Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea, and BSNL, as a UTM.

"Essential details for the registration of complaints should be automatically populated if users grant permission to access their call logs and other relevant data," the regulator said.

The Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations 2018 (TCCCPR-2018) are the government's main legal arsenal to battle the menace. Telcos are required to act against UTMs by giving a warning, putting them under the “usage caps” for a fixed number of calls and messages per day, or disconnecting services for repeat violations. On the third instance of violations, telemarketing connections will be disconnected for a period up to two years and blacklisted.

TRAI has said there is a lack of uniformity in the manner each telco is filling different entries and some information necessary for the analysis of complaints handling is not available in the report.

"For better analysis, the report may be separately segregated in respect of complaints related to registered telemarketers (RTM), complaints related to unregistered telemarketers (UTM) and information with respect to mobile number/landline number/SIP/PRI blacklisted/disconnected due to third UTM violation," TRAI said.