Saptak SanyalRecently TRAI has prescribed a limit, of 100 SMS per day per SIM for all the customers. Currently, Telecom service providers offer SMS packages offering as many as 2000 SMS per day, which can be made use of by unregistered persons for sending commercial communications from ordinary numbers. In order to reduce such a possibility, the TRAI drafted the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations, 2010 (6 of 2010), to regulate unsolicited commercial communications.
The regulations provides that no Access Provider shall provide to any person, other than a telemarketer registered with the Authority, any tariff plan or SMS package in any form such as special recharge voucher, student pack, seasonal pack etc. permitting sending of more than one hundred SMS per day per SIM except on ‘blackout days’ and additional days as may be specified by the Authority by direction issued from time to time and all such SMS packages already provided to any such person shall not be renewed after their expiry;
Few issues which were raised and addressed by TRAI-
a) Concerns have been raised that such provisions will impact flow of transactional messages such as from a bank to its customers or from Airlines to its passengers, and likewise from the schools to the students/ parents. Under the Regulation, such messages are classified as Transactional messages and the limit of 100 SMS does not apply to the Transaction messages. It is open to the authority to notify further categories as Transactional messages.
b). It is also to be noted that the time restriction of 9 pm to 9 am does not relate to the transactional messages which can be sent at any time
c) Following persons are excluded from the limit of one hundred SMS per day per SIM:-
(i) Dealers of the Telecom Service Providers and DTH Operators for sending request for electronic recharge on mobile numbers;
(ii) e-ticketing agencies for responding to e-ticketing request made by its customers;
(iii) The social networking sites – Facebook, Twitter, Orkut, LinkedIn and GooglePlus to its members pertaining to activities relating to their accounts based on their verifiable options;
(iv) Agencies providing directory services – Justdial, Zatse, Callezee, Getit and Askme.
The TRAI introduced these regulations in consumer interest. But how it will affect the consumers that is we still yet to know.