TRAI issues New Directions To Telcos To Crackdown Pesky Marketing Calls

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The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has issued new directions to telecom providers to stop misuse of Headers and Message Templates by Telemarketers, and to curb unauthorized promotions using telecom resources under TCCCPR-2018.

TRAI said that it has observed that Headers and Message Templates of Principal Entities (PEs) are being misused by some Telemarketers. To stop the same, it has asked service providers to reverify all registered Headers & Message Templates on DLT platform and block all unverified Headers and Message Templates within 30 and 60 days respectively.

It has asked telcos to ensure that temporary Headers are deactivated immediately after the time duration for which such headers were created. Look-alike headers should not be registered by Access Providers in names of different Principal Entities, it added.

To curb messages from unauthorized or unregistered telemarketers,
including telemarketers using telephone numbers, TRAI has asked telecom providers to ban all Telemarketers, who are not registered on Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT) platform from handling the message template scrubbing and delivery of messages to recipients through Access
Providers’ network

Telcos have also been asked to ensure that promotional messages are not transmitted by Unregistered Telemarketers or Telemarketers using telephone numbers (10 digits numbers)

TRAI has also asked them to take action against all such erring Telemarketers as per the provisions of the regulations and also initiate actions as per relevant legal laws. The Access Service Provider should also notify details of such Telemarketers to other Access Providers, who shall,
in turn, bar these entities from sending any kind of commercial communications through their networks.

TRAI said that all the Telecom Service Providers need to comply with these directions within thirty days.

TRAI recently implemented a blockchain-based ecosystem (Distributed Ledger Technology, or DLT) to combat Unsolicited Commercial Communication (UCC).

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