Anti spam regulation: 'Trai examining telco responses on penalties'

Regulator reviewing show-cause replies on anti-spam violations; timeline for Digital Consent Acquisition platform to be finalised within a month

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) will decide on telecom service providers' responses to the regulator's notices flagging non-compliance of anti-spam regulations and subsequent penalties.

 

“There are show cause notices issued to the service providers and they have responded, those are voluminous replies and are under examination. After we can conclude on all the explanations given by them, then we will decide on the action,” Trai Chairman AK Lahoti said in response to questions regarding imposing financial disincentives on telcos for violation of anti-spam rules, at a media briefing on Friday.

 

The issue of imposing higher financial disincentives on telcos has been brewing, with the regulator seeking sharper penal powers, including amendments in the TRAI Act, allowing for higher penalties and directing telcos to deposit a partial amount of the penalties before penalty notices are appealed. Currently, telcos are penalised ₹100,000 for the first offense and ₹200,000 for second or subsequent offences.

 

Trai had levied penalties of about ₹150 crore on telcos for violating Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations, 2018 in 2024, pertaining to inability to prevent spam, which was stayed by the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT). The case is yet to reach the culmination stage and has been pending since.

 

Within a month, the timeline of implementation of the Digital Consent Acquisition (DCA) platform would be worked out, following a pilot run which has been conducted by telcos and the RBI since January, the Trai chairman added. Under the pilot, telcos, in partnership with 11 major banks, will begin sending out messages to a small set of customers who can digitally review, manage, and revoke the consents they had previously given for promotional communications. The messages, as part of system testing, will begin with a shortcode of 127000 and are likely to be received by customers whose old consents have been uploaded by the banks on the digital platform. The move will be the first step towards a unified digital consent management platform, which will ensure that promotional communications are discontinued if customers revoke their consents. This will also address the issue of spam.

 

Trai launches new DND & MySpeed apps

 

On Friday, Trai launched revamped versions of its apps — Do Not Disturb (DND) and MySpeed — to reduce spam and unsolicited calls and messages and help improve service quality. A revamped version of MyCall app would also be launched in March, which will enable consumers to file complaints about the quality of calls.

 

The DND app has a simplified interface, multilingual options, fewer steps for complaint registration, improved preference management within the app, and more reliable support for dual-SIM phones. Following the implementation of the 1600 number series for financial services entities, customers will be able to see the name of the sender on the app. Complaints filed by consumers on the app are sent to telecom companies through API integration.

 

“In future, we will also incorporate an appeals feature so that a consumer who is not satisfied with the service provider’s response can file an appeal through the app itself,” the chairman said. 

 

Of the 3.1 million unsolicited commercial communication complaints received last year, more than half were reported through the DND app. The MySpeed app now features multilingual support for Bhashini, an AI-powered translation platform, and will be able to test 5G speeds, besides speeds on fixed-line broadband or Wi-Fi, on phones as well as laptops. The app will also feature video and web browsing tests, continuous and scheduled tests, where users can measure latency, jitter and packet loss, viewed on a geospatial map within the app itself.

 

“In future, the anonymised consumer data will also be used to populate crowd-sourced data on a map, which will be accessible through the private side. This map will enable consumers to see the actual performance of various service providers at any location,” said Lahoti.

 

As many as 730,000 notices were issued last year to unregistered telemarketers found violating regulatory norms. A total of 470,000 entities were restricted for one month, and 89,936 repeat offenders were disconnected for non-compliance.