In a bid to curb the growing menace of spam calls, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) directs all Access Service Providers to disconnect telecom resources of unregistered senders and blacklist them under the Telecom Commercial Communication Customer Preference Regulations, 2018 (TCCCPR-2018).
As per the new rules, all promotional voice calls from unregistered senders using telecom resources will be stopped immediately. If any unregistered sender is found misusing telecom resources, their resources will be disconnected for up to two years, and they will be blacklisted. The blacklisting information will be shared with all Access Providers, who will then disconnect the sender's resources within 24 hours.
Additionally, all unregistered senders must migrate to the DLT platform within a month and submit a compliance report within seven days. DLT or distributed ledger technology is a digital system for keeping and managing the record of sender IDs and template.
Access providers have been directed to comply with these directives and submit regular updates on the actions taken on the 1st and 16th of every month. This decisive action by TRAI is expected to significantly reduce spam calls and provide relief to consumers.
“This decisive action by TRAI is expected to significantly reduce spam calls and provide relief to consumers,” stated a press note from TRAI.
Last week, TRAI directed telecom service providers (TSPs) to disconnect the telecom resources of any entity caught engaging in spam activities. Under the new directive, entities found exploiting their SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) or PRI (Primary Rate Interface) lines for spam calls will be blacklisted by their TSP. This information will be shared with other telecom operators to ensure comprehensive blacklisting across the industry for up to two years.
During the blacklisted period, no new telecom resources will be allocated to the entity by any TSP.
The decision was made during a meeting held today with the chief regulatory officers of Airtel, BSNL, Quadrant Televentures Limited (QTL), Reliance Jio, Tata Teleservices Limited, Vodafone Idea Limited, and V-CON Mobile & Infra Private Limited. However, TRAI noted that representatives from MTNL and Reliance Communications Limited were absent from the meeting.