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Unsolicited Commercial Communication
The pesky commercial calls and messages are a major irritant to the Indian mobile customers. TRAI has implemented a regulation to control unsolicited commercial communication (UCC) and introduced Do Not Disturb (DND) register. This has greatly reduced the number of unsolicited phone calls but the volume of SMSs has gone up substantially high during the recent period.
Bulk SMSs are proved to be faster, cost effective and have the maximum reach to the right audience. A major advantage of SMS advertising is that it can be ensured that it reaches the end user. In the case of television or newspaper advertisement, there is no guarantee that the message reaches and seen or read by the target group.
Bulk SMSs are sold at 3 paise per call and it contributes to approximately Rs 20 crore telecom revenue every month in India. These bulk SMS services are managed by SMS aggregators and SMS gateway providers.
It is suggested by some consumer forums that TRAI must impose a termination charge of 5 to 10 paise per SMS to raise the cost of bulk SMS and discourage the operators who continue to sell bulk SMSs. Another recommendation is to penalize the operators for messaging the customers who have subscribed to Do Not Disturb registry. In the US the penalties for such violation is around $ 11,000 per call.
However some of the operators are pointing out the positive use of such bulk SMSs, particularly when used in emergency situations or when used by closed user groups like parents of school children.
As these SMSs are sent with the prefixes of the telecom operator it is easy to identify which operator is promoting these bulks SMSs. Recently Airtel has announced its decision to exit from bulk SMSs. It is expected that other major operators may also follow Airtel.
Bulk SMS is a classic case of negative innovation. When the telecom operators wanted to add value, it ended as a nuisance to their customers.
Recentamendments in regulations
The Telecom Authority of India (TRAI) has announced on 1st December, 2010 that all telemarketers' mobile numbers should start with digits 700 to facilitate identification of such numbers. TRAI is proposing to come out with a new regulation called Customer Call Preference Regulation' with the objective of restricting the unsolicited marketing calls and SMS messages.
The current National Do Not Call Registry is found to be not very effective. According to one study the current effectiveness of the registry is below 65% as the subscribers continue to get telemarketers' calls even after registering with NDNC.
The existing Do Not Call Registry rules will be modified to enable subscribers to have the choice of getting telemarketing calls from any specific segment if they want. For example, a subscriber may choose to receive telemarketing calls from the property dealers for a period of say, three months. The new system will be known as the Customer Call Preference Registration or CCPR.
The new regulations require the service providers to stop the unsolicited calls within 7 days as against the earlier time period of 45 days. There will be huge penalties if the service providers and telemarketers violate these provisions. TRAI has propose to impose the penalty at six levels.
Penalty (Rs)
Firsttime offence 25,000
Second time 75,000
Third time80,000
Fourth time 125,000
Fifth time 150,000
Sixth time 250,000
After six violations, the licence of the telemarketer will be cancelled.
TRAI is also proposing to impose a limit on the number of SMSs sent in a day by an individual who is not registered as a telemarketer.
The regulations mandate that no commercial communication, even for unregistered callers, shall be made between 9pm and 9 am.
