Telecom operators are working with technology partners to implement solutions to curb the menace of pesky calls and SMSes in the coming months, the Cellular Operators Association of India said on Tuesday.

The association, which represents major telecom operators, said the companies will be bringing a few more models to address the issue of unsolicited commercial communication (UCC).

“The industry has developed various modules over the DLT (distributed ledger technology) framework, which have been reasonably successful considering the noticeable decline in the volume of UCC originating from SMS over the last couple of years,” said SP Kocchar, director general of COAI.

Kocchar, however, said the UCC from voice calls is still an issue that the regulator and telcos are working together to address.  Currently, the government has allocated the 140 series for promotional voice calls and has also prescribed the 160 series for transactional and service voice calls. The same will be helpful for users to attend to genuine service calls.

Comments from COAI have come at a time when the department of consumer affairs is working to release draft guidelines to control unwanted spam calls and messages. Once the new guidelines are issued and implemented, it would be the first time that banks, fintech companies, real estate developers, and others, will be directly held liable for such spam communication as these entities outsource their promotional sales to third-party agencies.

“We believe that these guidelines, once notified, will be helpful in addressing the menace of UCC substantially as it will put a deterrence on the Unregistered Telemarketers,” Kochhar said.

Till now, Trai’s Telecom Commercial Communication Customer Preference Regulation (TCCCPR), was trying to control the menace of UCC. TCCCPR is based on a technological solution, i.e. Blockchain – Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), to provide the best possible solution to curb UCC. This also involves multiple stakeholders, – telecom operators, telemarketers, aggregators, principal entities (PEs), etc.

Further, the Digital Consent Acquisition (DCA) framework is an important module developed by the TSPs, wherein PEs are required to digitally take explicit consent from the users for sending commercial/business communications. TSPs are trying to engage and onboard various PEs like Banks, Financial Institutions, Real Estate Agencies, etc. to implement the DCA framework, COAI said.