Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has mandated access service providers (ASPs) to disconnect all telecom resources of unregistered senders or telemarketers (UTMs) for making spam calls under Telecom Commercial Communication Customer Preference Regulations, 2018 (TCCCPR-2018).
These voice calls can be pre-recorded, or computer generated or otherwise from all UTMs using session initiating protocol (SIP)/ primary rate interface (PRI) or other telecom resources.
TRAI has directed that if any UTM is found misusing its telecom resources (SIP/PRI/other telecom resources) for making commercial voice calls in violation of the regulations resulting into consumer complaints against any one or more number of resource indicators allocated to the sender, then all the telecom resources of such sender shall be disconnected by the originating access provider (OAP) for a period up to two years as per the provisions of the regulation 25 of the regulations.
Furthermore, information regarding blacklisting of the sender shall be shared by the OAP with all other ASPs on distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform, within 24 hours, who will, in turn, disconnect all the telecom resources given by them to that sender within the next 24 hours. No new telecom resources would be allocated to such sender by any ASPs during the period of blacklisting as provided for in the regulations.
Moreover, UTMs using SIP/PRI/other telecom resources to make commercial voice calls to the citizen shall be migrated to the DLT platform within one month of the issue of this direction and submit compliance report within seven days thereafter.
All ASPs have been directed to comply with these directives and submit regular updates on the actions taken on the 1st and 16th of every month. This decisive action by TRAI is expected to significantly reduce spam calls and provide relief to consumers.
