Trai unlikely to extend November 30 deadline for message traceability norms

With 13,000 businesses already registering with telcos, TRAI believes no disruption would occur

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) is not expected to extend the November 30 deadline for the traceability of commercial messages, officials said, asserting that more than 13,000 businesses have registered their chain with telecom operators.

 

The telecom regulator in August directed all telcos to ensure that messages sent by businesses or principal entities (PEs), including banks, e-commerce platforms, and financial institutions, among others, to the public are traceable from November. The move is aimed at clamping down on spam calls and messages.

 

While the initial deadline was November 1, it was extended last month to November 30 after businesses and registered telemarketers (RTMs) complained that the short notice would not give them enough time to institute technical upgrades.

It had given rise to concern over potential disruptions in delivering essential transactional and service messages by businesses. Trai, however, said a system had been put in place to tackle the issue.

 

"While telecom operators had earlier warned of disruptions in the case of the original deadline, they have now communicated their ability to adhere to it," an official said. All telcos have implemented the technical solutions, and the operators have also sent many warning notices to all businesses and RTMs who have not yet implemented the necessary changes, he added.

 

To raise awareness about the new directions, Trai organised three webinars this month. Organised in association with Reliance Jio, the first one was attended by over 1000 representatives from entities regulated by the Reserve Bank of India, the Securities and Exchange Board of India, the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority, and the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority. The second webinar was conducted in association with Vodafone Idea Ltd and was attended by over 800 representatives from central and state government departments, among others.

 

New norms 

From December 1, messages with undefined or mismatched telemarketer chains will be rejected by the system, and not delivered to customers. In case the entire chain of telemarketers involved in the message transmission does not match the expected sequence, messages would also be rejected.

 

Industry estimates indicate that between 1.5 and 1.7 billion commercial messages are sent in India each day, underscoring the potential impact on users if the messages were blocked. To prevent major disruptions, telecom operators had agreed to send daily status updates to telemarketers and PEs, allowing time for necessary adjustments before the enforcement date.

 

Meanwhile, over 4,000 registered senders have complied with Trai’s requirement by whitelisting more than a lakh links, officials said.

 

The telecom regulator had mandated the whitelisting, or registration, of internet links, Android application packages (APKs), and call-back numbers sent through text messages by September 1, which was extended by a month to October 1. A uniform resource locator (URL) is essentially the link for a website, or the address of a unique resource on the internet while an APK is an executable file that contains all the data needed to install and run an Android app.