Singla Ji Buzz: Freedom from Pesky Calls and SMS from 27th September. Really? - MobiGyaan

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) released 'The Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference (sixth amendment) Regulations, 2011'. According to it the regulations framed to save Mobile subscribers from Pesky Calls and SMSes will come into force from 27th September 2011. The deadline for implementing these regulations have been extended several times in past, let's hope it does not happen this time.

Key points in 'The Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference (sixth amendment) Regulations, 2011'

• We mentioned in one of our earlier articles that TRAI won't allow sending more than 100 SMS/day per SIM. However, according to the recent amendment, Mobile subscribers will be allowed to send 100 SMS/day per SIM if the TRAI will specify the category of SMS which shall be excluded from the limit of 100 SMS/day per SIM.
• Every Access Provider shall withdraw before the 26th September, 2011 all telecom resources allocated to a telemarketer except those telecom resources which have been allocated in accordance with the provisions of the regulations.
• Every Access Provider shall ensure that any commercial communication including SMS, other than transactional messages, is sent to a customer only between 0900 Hrs to 2100 Hrs
• A customer may exercise his option to receive messages for the following preferences: 1- Banking/Insurance/Financial products/credit cards, 2- Real Estate, 3 Education, 4- Health, 5- Consumer goods and automobiles, 6- Communication/Broadcasting/Entertainment/IT, 7- Tourism and Leisure.
• For sending the promotional messages, the telemarketers shall use alphanumeric identifier in the format XY-RZZZZZ where X stands for code allotted to Access provider, Y stands for service area, as specified by the TRAI from time to time and R being any digit from 0 to 7, where 0 indicate that the SMS is commercial communication but does not belong to any preference specified under serial number III, 1-7 indicates the preference specified under serial number III and ZZZZZ indicates five digit unique identification code allotted to telemarketer by the Access Provider. As and when additional preferences are specified by the TRAI,
• the same will be assigned number 8 onwards for ’R’.
• The telecom resources allotted by an Access Provider to the telemarketer shall be from the number series ‘140’ allocated by Department of Telecommunications (DoT) for voice calls and SMS header as specified by the TRAI.