TRAI proposes differential tariffs for spams, steeper fines for telcos failing to act against telemarketers

India's telecom regulator is doubling down on efforts to eradicate spam messages and nuisance calls as it begins reviewing the regulations—Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations (TCCCPR)—it issued back in 2018.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has sought views from stakeholders on whether tariffs can be imposed on telemarketers for voice calls and text messages beyond a certain limit.

Trai, in its consultation paper, has highlighted that 0.03% of more than 1.1 billion subscribers were sending between 51 to 100 SMS per SIM per day, and 0.12% were making 51 to 100 voice calls per day per SIM. “Differential tariff may make commercial communication using 10-digit numbers unviable for unregistered telemarketers and encourages them to move to DLT where consent is mandatory and aims to protect consumers,” the regulator said.

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It has asked stakeholders for views on what the limit should be and the tariffs that should be implemented beyond that limit.

It has also raised the quantum of penalties on telcos for failing to act against erring telemarketers, which will be capped at ₹50 lakh per month per circle.

The proposed financial penalties on registered telemarketers for failing to curb what are called unsolicited commercial communication or UCC start at ₹1,000 per valid complaint, ₹5,000 per registration not done in accordance with the rules, and ₹1 lakh per misuse of number series assigned for transactional calls. 

In case of misreporting of UCC, telco will be fined ₹5 lakh per circle per month. In case the telco is unable to take action, a fine of ₹10,000 per instance per individual unregistered sender and ₹1 lakh per instance per unregistered entity will be levied. 

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If a complaint has been declared invalid on unjustifiable grounds, ₹10,000 per count will be levied on the telco, and if a telco has misreported the count of UCC, ₹5 lakh per circle per month will be levied. 

The total amount in a month in a circle cannot exceed ₹50 lakh, Trai has proposed.

While telecom service providers have imposed penal actions and disconnected over 78,000 numbers since 2020, unwanted calls and messages continue unabated.

“Despite the above punitive actions, the unsolicited calls from 10-digits mobile numbers continue to irritate and harass customers. Such individuals deliberately masquerade themselves as “normal subscribers” even though their primary purpose for obtaining telecom resources is for telemarketing activities,” Trai said in the consultation paper, adding that it had noticed a substantial increase in the customer complaints against UTMs in comparison to that against registered tele marketers (RTMs)/senders.

The paper pointed to a four-fold increase in the number of complaints against UTMs, to 1.2 million as of December 2023 versus 307,043 in December 2020. Meanwhile, complaints against RTMs have reduced by a third in the same time frame, to 139,886 as of December 2023 from 349,111 as of December 2020.

Other proposals

Trai has proposed to redefine commercial communications so that it is simple and unambiguous, and calls and messages are categorized into transactional, promotional and government with clear distinctions. 

The regulator has also flagged the urgent need to put forward an appropriate regulatory measure to curb commercial communications using auto dialer or robot-calls. 

It has proposed that senders mandatorily tell the telcos in advance about them using auto-dialers for commercial communication, while explicit consent from user for receiving such calls has to be obtained by the telcos in advance. 

Distinct identification in headers of transactional, promotional and government messages can help consumers, Trai has said.

To improve detection of senders of bulk messages and calls, feedback can be taken from the recipients of calls from the people making more than 50 calls and 50 messages in a day, the regulator has suggested, noting that number of people making mobile calls of more than 50 in a day was less than 0.2% and 0.04% in case of messages beyond this limit.

Views and counter views have been sought till 25 September, following which Trai will conduct and open house discussion and then submit its recommendations to the department of telecommunications for action.

Several steps taken to reduce spam menace 

Trai has taken several steps to reduce the menace of spam calls and messages since the beginning of the year. TRAI chairman Anil Kumar Lahoti told DD News earlier this week that curbing UCC was one of the top priorities for the regulator, besides improving quality of services for consumers. 

Last week Trai issued a directive as per which from 1 September, messages containing non-whitelisted URLs or website links, APK or file format used by Android for installing apps, OTT (over-the-top apps) links, or call-back numbers will be prohibited. The move is anticipated to create a disruption in users getting their OTPs as they may get wrongly blocked if telcos do not correctly make the required distinctions in their systems. 

Trai has also mandated that telemarketing calls starting with the 140-series (assigned to telemarketers) will have to be migrated to an online DLT (digital ledger technology) platform or on blockchain by 30 September to enable better monitoring. 

Trail of all telemarketing messages from senders to recipients must be traceable from November 1, 2024. Any message with an undefined or mismatched telemarketer chain will be rejected, the directive has specified. 

TRAI has introduced punitive measures for non-compliance, including blacklisting and suspension of services. Telcos have said that the norms would increase compliance burden on them without creating much improvement for consumers.