TRAI imposes 5 paise deterrant for pesky messages
October 25th, 2011 - 9:22 pm ICT by IANSNew Delhi, Oct 25 (IANS) The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) Tuesday said it will impose a termination charge of 5 paise per SMS on operators from whose networks commercial messages originate in a move to further curb pesky messages from nagging customers.
“In order to further deter the sending of promotional SMSs, the authority has now prescribed a promotional SMS charge of five paisa only payable by an originating access provider to the terminating access provider for each promotional SMS sent by a registered telemarketer from the network of the originating access provider to the network of the terminating access provider,” TRAI said in a statement.
The government had introduced a regulation last month which barred unwanted commercial calls and messages from disturbing mobile subscribers by levying huge penalties on the defaulters, including fines ranging from Rs.25,000 to Rs.250,000.
To make the telemarketing firms identifiable, the regulation also ensured that their phone numbers begin with ‘140′.
However, after silence of a couple of weeks, the pesky messages have again started nagging customers. According to reports, many of these messages are generated online.
Earlier this month, confirming that even after Sep 27 a certain amount of pesky messages were circulating in the country, Communications Minister Kapil Sibal had said that these messages were generated by internet and therefore the government so far had no mechanism to control them.
However according to the regulator, transactional messages are exempted from this regulation.
Such messages include SMSes sent by e-commerce agencies or by firms registered with Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), Insurance Regulatory Development Authority (IRDA), Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI), National Commodity & Derivative Exchange Ltd. (NCDEX) or Multi Commodity Exchange of India Ltd. (MCX) to its clients and goods delivery confirmation SMSes.
- TRAI to disconnect individual numbers making pesky calls, messages - Nov 04, 2011
- 28,000 phones disconnected for making pesky calls - May 06, 2012
- Regulation preventing pesky calls comes into effect - Sep 27, 2011
- Pesky SMSs again - via new routes - Nov 06, 2011
- No more pesky calls, messages from Sep 27: TRAI - Sep 05, 2011
- Mobile users can now send 200 SMSes a day - Nov 01, 2011
- Pesky calls to nag customers for one more month - Jan 31, 2011
- TRAI issues guidelines for mobile banking services - Apr 18, 2012
- TRAI disconnects connections of telemarketing companies for pesky calls - Aug 10, 2011
- Why cap on SMSes, high court asks TRAI, government - Dec 07, 2011
- No more pesky calls, SMSs from Tuesday - Sep 26, 2011
- TRAI to start registration of telemarketers from Jan 15 - Jan 14, 2011
- Government hangs up on telemarketers - Dec 01, 2010
- Over 130 mn subscribers opt for do not call registry - Sep 02, 2011
- Telecom firms should bar pesky calls, SMSes: TRAI - Nov 18, 2011
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