New Delhi: India's telcos have slammed the latest regulations by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) to curb spam, saying they will have little impact to check the menace as the main stakeholders like telemarketers and over-the-top (OTT) players have been kept out of the ambit while telecom firms, which are mere providers of infra, have been burdened with additional compliances.
All the issues that were raised by the telecom operators during the consultation process have not been addressed by the regulator, while the rules have been made more stringent for them, senior executives at the country's top mobile phone companie said.
"The new rules put additional responsibilities on telecom firms, but the main perpetrators of spam remain untouched," said an executive with a telco on the condition of anonymity.
The operators had called for telemarketers and principal entities (PEs), which are the primary stakeholders for commercial communication, to be held accountable and brought under the regulatory fold if the menace of spam has to be addressed.
"Whatever issues raised by us during the consultation process remains untouched. The main perpetrators -telemarketers and OTT players - remain outside the regulation. How can the telcos control who is calling to whom," said a another executive at a second telco.
Queries sent to Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea remained unanswered at the time of going to press.
Trai, on Wednesday, amended the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations. Holding telcos accountable, the regulator prescribed financial penalties ranging from ₹2 lakh to ₹10 lakh for repeated violations in cases where telecom operators misreport the counts of pesky calls and messages.
These financial penalties will be in addition to the fines imposed on telecom operators against invalid closure of complaints, and for not fulfilling their obligations in respect of registration of message headers and content templates.
In the new rules, Trai has allowed consumers to submit complaints against unsolicited commercial communications (UCC), also called pesky or spam, without the need of first registering their preferences for blocking or receiving commercial communications.
The amended regulations, however, only cover communications received through telecom networks. Messages and calls through OTT apps such as WhatsApp are not covered. This was a key demand from stakeholders during the open house consultation ahead of the release of the amended regulations.
The telcos had stressed that since a large amount of commercial traffic was being carried by the OTTs, if these platforms were kept outside the purview of regulations, spam and scam can't be stopped as the IT Act does not include issues around combating these problems.
All the issues that were raised by the telecom operators during the consultation process have not been addressed by the regulator, while the rules have been made more stringent for them, senior executives at the country's top mobile phone companie said.
"The new rules put additional responsibilities on telecom firms, but the main perpetrators of spam remain untouched," said an executive with a telco on the condition of anonymity.
The operators had called for telemarketers and principal entities (PEs), which are the primary stakeholders for commercial communication, to be held accountable and brought under the regulatory fold if the menace of spam has to be addressed.
"Whatever issues raised by us during the consultation process remains untouched. The main perpetrators -telemarketers and OTT players - remain outside the regulation. How can the telcos control who is calling to whom," said a another executive at a second telco.
Queries sent to Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea remained unanswered at the time of going to press.
Trai, on Wednesday, amended the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations. Holding telcos accountable, the regulator prescribed financial penalties ranging from ₹2 lakh to ₹10 lakh for repeated violations in cases where telecom operators misreport the counts of pesky calls and messages.
These financial penalties will be in addition to the fines imposed on telecom operators against invalid closure of complaints, and for not fulfilling their obligations in respect of registration of message headers and content templates.
In the new rules, Trai has allowed consumers to submit complaints against unsolicited commercial communications (UCC), also called pesky or spam, without the need of first registering their preferences for blocking or receiving commercial communications.
The amended regulations, however, only cover communications received through telecom networks. Messages and calls through OTT apps such as WhatsApp are not covered. This was a key demand from stakeholders during the open house consultation ahead of the release of the amended regulations.
The telcos had stressed that since a large amount of commercial traffic was being carried by the OTTs, if these platforms were kept outside the purview of regulations, spam and scam can't be stopped as the IT Act does not include issues around combating these problems.
