The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has issued a new directive to prevent annoying spam messages. In which , TRAI strcitly stated that,"Unregistered telemarketers cannot send more than 200 commercial SMS within an hour and with a similar signature, but consumers and registered telemarketers are exempted from sending non-commercial SMS. TRAI has introduced this new regulation in order to prevent unregistered telemarketers from misusing SMS packs or tariff plans for sending bulk promotional SMS.
For increasing consumer awareness and to caution against misuse, tel cos have been mandated to send SMS to all customers on periodic basis, advising them not to send any commercial communications and informing them about the consequences of misuse. The lodging of a complaint against an unregistered telemarketer call has also been made easier. Now the complaint can be registered through SMS by simply forwarding the spam SMS to 1909 after appending the telephone number and date of receipt of the SMS. Mobile operators will also need to set-up a web-based complaint registering system and a dedicated e-mail address to receive such complaints on spam messages and calls, as per the TRAI order. TRAI has also asked the operators to send SMS to all the customers advising them not to use their number for sending commercial SMS, and also take a written consent in the Customer Acquisition Form that they would not use the number for sending such SMS. Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal had last week said he too was a victim of the unsolicited communications. "Every two minutes I get such SMS," he had said. These SMS packs and tariff plans are being misused by unregistered telemarketers to send promotional SMSes to consumers. To prevent unregistered telemarketers from misusing such SMS packs or tariff plans for sending bulk promotional SMSes, a price restraint has been placed," Trai added.
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