Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has asked the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) not to penalise telecom operators for unsolicited calls and messages to consumers.
A recent amendment by the TRAI stated that anyone who does not register with telecom companies to send commercial communication and still sends out commercial messages will be treated as a spammer by the regulatory watchdog. Under this amendment, operators are directed to provide a mandatory opt-out feature, maintain records of complaints and sender details, deploy “honeypot” numbers to attract and log spam calls and messages, analyse emerging spam trends and take pre-emptive action against suspected spammers. Further, it specified a financial disincentive for access providers of upto ₹ 2 lakh for first instance of violation, ₹ 5 lakh for the second instance and ₹ 10 lakh per instance for subsequent instances of violation.
Stating that operators have already taken then efforts to reduce UCC complaints from users, Lt. Gen. Dr. S.P. Kochhar, Director General of COAI raised concern about the increased penalty imposed over TSPs.
“COAI had submitted that Financial Disincentives (FDs) on TSPs, being only intermediary in this process, do not serve any purpose and have failed to address the issue in TRAI’s all attempts to curb spam calls. Instead, if at all these penalties are required, it should be directed to telemarketers and principal entities who are actual originators and beneficiaries of the commercial communications,” said Kochhar.
“COAI is disappointed to notice that the TRAI’s amendment of the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations (TCCCPR), 2018 to strengthen consumer protection against Unsolicited Commercial Communication (UCC), has been issued without addressing all relevant issues. One of the most important demand of the TSPs was that this amendment should be released only after delivery telemarketers are brought under regulation to manage unlawful communication,” said Kochhar.
Licensing regime
Earlier, COAI had submitted to the TRAI that telemarketers be brought under the licensing regime to reduce the number of spam calls. It argued that doing so will establish government control over entities responsible for sending such communications, in compliance with TCCCPR-2018.
It also reiterated telco demands to bring over-the-top (OTT) communication service providers under these regulations, stating that OTTs and telemarketers have become major stakeholders in messaging.
“There has been a significant increase in the quantum of unsolicited communications as well as legitimate commercial communication, that has moved to OTT communication apps, substantially leading to the rise in financial crimes in the country. We earnestly believe that the TRAI should take into consideration our key submission and bring these entities under the ambit of the Regulation, as it would make no sense to regulate one section of the traffic (TSPs) while the other section (OTT Communication Services) has no regulations at all,” said Kochhar.
Another important aspect was to reduce subjectivity from the Regulation as well as compliances, which are based on relationship between Principal Entities and their consumers, which has not been addressed.