The telecom regulator has warned three mobile companies against allowing illegal telemarketers to send unwanted messages on their network. The three operators — Aircel, Reliance Communications and Tata Teleservices — have been told by TRAI to take immediate measures to stop the practice or face action.
According to a source in TRAI, the maximum number of consumer complaints were against telemarketers who were found to be using bulk SMSes bought from these three telecom companies. TRAI Chairman Rahul Khullar had raised this issue at a recent meeting with the CEOs of these companies. The source added that the three operators were selling bulk SMSes to unregistered telemarketers at very low price which allowed them to spam consumers’ mobile phone with unsolicited messages.
New measure
TRAI has, meanwhile, introduced a new law to curb the menace of unwanted calls.
Under this new rule, telephone connection given to unauthorised telemarketers will be disconnected immediately on the first complaint and they will be blacklisted for two years.
During these two years, no phone company can offer a connection to the blacklisted individual or entity. Earlier, the illegal telemarketers were issued warnings and penalised before disconnection.
For making a complaint through SMS, a customer has to SMS “the unsolicited commercial communication, XXX… dd/mm/yy” to 1909. Where ‘XXX…’ is the ten-digit telephone number or header of the SMS, from which the unsolicited message has originated.
The telephone number or header and the date of receipt of the unsolicited commercial SMS may be appended with such SMS, while forwarding to 1909, with or without space after comma.
TRAI has also imposed a termination charge of 5 paise on each commercial SMS.
Termination charge is the fee paid by the operator on whose network the SMS originates to the operator on whose network the message ends.
By imposing the charge, TRAI wants to ensure that bulk SMS rates are priced at least 5 paise or more.
Earlier, operators would give away bulk SMSes to telemarketers for as low as 1 paise/message.
This had led to disputes between the operators. Airtel, for instance, declined to terminate SMS from Aircel’s network on grounds that huge amounts of telemarketing messages were clogging its network.