The telecom regulator on Tuesday intensified the crackdown on unwanted messages received by consumers. New regulations being considered by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) will make it mandatory for service providers to pay a termination charge of five paise per each unwanted SMS the consumer gets from October 15. This would act as a deterrent to telecom companies who allow millions of messages to pass through their networks in a day.
Stating this, Trai chairman JS Sarma said the penalty would only be on commercial SMS, not on general SMS.
Currently, some operators charge up to 15 paise per SMS as termination fee on mutual agreements but it is not mandatory. Earlier, the regulator had imposed a cap of 100 SMSes per day per SIM in its efforts to curb pesky messages. On Tuesday, the regulator, however, clarified that the limit would not apply to various service providers, dealers of telecom operators, e-ticketing agencies and social networking sites.
The exemption would be available for e-ticketing agencies for responding to e-ticketing request made by its customers, SMSes from social networking sites Facebook, Twitter, Orkut, LinkedIn and GooglePlus to their members in connection with activities related to their accounts, based on verifiable options, and agencies providing directory services, such as Justdial, Zatse, Callezee, Getit and Askme.
Further, this limit will not also be applicable on ?blackout days? (festive occasions), when the customer is free to send as many messages as he wants.
In the case of post-paid telephone numbers, the access provider shall not permit more than 3,000 SMSes per SIM per month, the Trai has said. ?The access provider shall, before excluding the persons, obtain an undertaking from such person that he shall not use the said facility in any manner for sending commercial communications,? it said. Subscribers also have the option of choosing to be under the ?Fully Blocked? category, which is akin to the ?Do Not Call Registry?.