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8/4/2019 SMS Rules (New)
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SMS messaging was first used in December 1992, when Neil Papworth, a 22-year-old test
engineer for Sema Group[2]
(now Airwide Solutions),[3]
used a personal computer to send the text
message "Merry Christmas" via the Vodafone network to the phone of Richard Jarvis.[4][5]
ShortMessage Service (SMS) was originated from Radio Telegraphy, it has since been extended to
include messages containing image, video, and sound content (known as MMS messages).
Standard SMS messaging uses 160 bytes per message, which translates to 160 characters of the English
alphabet. SMS is available on a wide range of networks, including 3G networks. Today, text messaging
is the most widely used mobile data service, with 74% of all mobile phone users worldwide, or 2.4
billion out of 3.3 billion phone subscribers, at end of 2007 being active users of the Short Message
Service. Text messages contribute to 20% of operator revenues. 94% of 18-24 year olds send personal
texts. 34% of those aged between 18-24 send 36 or more messages a week. 14% of people send business
text messages on their mobile phone (MDA Professional text messaging report 2003).
NEW SMS GUIDELINES:ONLY 100 SMS PER DAY by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India(TRAI): As we know that TRAI is looking for ways to stop Spam and telemarketing SMS, it has
issued new SMS guidelines or 'Per Day Per Sim' (PDPS) rule .As per new guidelines, all telecom service
providers are required to remove all SMS packs which provide more than 100 SMS per day and The
regulation imposes a limit of 100 SMS per day per SIM with a further limit of 3000 SMS per month for
post paid customer. Mobile users who have the habit of sending more than 100 SMS per day will have to
restrict yourself to 100 SMS because you can send only 100 SMS per day using SMS offers and if your
send more than 100 SMS in SMS offer pack then you will be charged for every SMS you send. TRAI has
taken this decision because of the growing number of Unsolicited Commercial Communications (
promotional SMS and Calls).Another guideline which I think is good step is, TRAI also has given
direction that no Service Providers shall provide any SMS packages in any form (through voucher,
student pack, seasonal pack etc) permitting sending of more than 100 SMS per day per SIM.
Some important details we’ve culled out from the regulations:
For Subscribers: This has been done to discourage unregistered telemarketers from setting up
modem farms, bypassing the telemarketer registration framework. If someone sets up a modem farm, then
they’ll have to pay P2P SMS rates. - Single number for registering, deregistering and complaints, across telecom operators, for both
wireline and wireless: 1909.
- Two options: you can either choose to register for the fully blocked service, which promises no
messages, or opt to receive promotions for specific categories, in the partially blocked mode. Those
already on the Do Not Call Registry will be transferred to the Fully Blocked list of the National
Customer Preference Register (NCPR)- The request for addition to the NCPR needs to be completed within 7 days. Earlier, it was 45 days for
the NDNC(National Do Not Call) service.
- Complaint details required: Need to mention the following details of the message: the originating
telephone number, date, time, and a description of the message / call
- Commercial communication via SMS can take place only between 0900 Hrs to 2100 Hrs
- Subscribers can opt for commercial messages from specific segments.
1 – Banking/Insurance/Financial products/credit cards, 2 – Real Estate, 3 – Education, 4 – Health,5 – Consumer goods and automobiles, 6 – Communication/Broadcasting/Entertainment/IT, 7 – Tourism
and Leisure.
SMS START <option> to subscribe, STOP <option> to unsubscribe
- Once you register / change your preference, you can’t change it for three months.
- Telecom operators need to take action on complaints within seven days.
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For Telemarketers:- No subscriber, who is not registered as a telemarketer under these regulations, shall make any
commercial communication. Hence, there’s a limit of 100 SMS’ per day for non -telemarketers, which
will force telemarketers to register to offer services to clients. The registration is valid for three years,
and this forces an unregulated (almost rogue) industry into the regulatory environment.
- The National Telemarketer Register shall contain the following details of the telemarketer: registration
date, application number, registration number, fees deposited, telecom resources allotted to atelemarketer, number of notices received (with dates), date of blacklisting (if applicable).
– Deposit and Fee: Every telemarketer shall, for registration with the Authority, pay Rs. 9000 for
customer education and Rs. 1000 for registration. It shall also deposit Rs. 100,000 as a refundable
security deposit. However, fines will be deducted from this deposit.
– Blacklisting: Telemarketers will be blacklisted on the basis of a six strike policy (or failure to furnish
an additional security amount in case of unsolicited messaging/calls). There’s a fine for each of the six
strikes too: starting with Rs. 25000 for the first strike, then Rs. 75000, Rs. 80000, Rs. 120000, Rs.
150000 and Rs. 250000 - A separate numbering series 70XXXXXXXXwill be allocated for telemarketers, allowing customers
to ignore calls
- For messages telemarketers need to use an alpha-numeric identifier:
1st : Telco code, 2nd: service area code, 3rd: dash(-), 4th: any single digit (1-7) with the digitindicating a specific category of SMS (as mentioned above), 5th-9th: a unique five digit unique
identification code provided by respective telco to the telemarketer
- An agency appointed by the TRAI shall update the NCPR with the data received from the telcos
(Provider Customer Preference Register) twice a week on every Tuesday and Friday from 0000 Hrs to
0600 Hrs. The additions and deletions in NCPR shall be available for download by telcos and the
telemarketers from 0700 Hrs to 1300 Hrs on every Tuesday and Friday respectively.
For Telecom Operators:- Need to maintain their own Provider Customer Preference Register, which will have the following
details for each subscriber: name, telephone number, the date and time of the request by the subscriber;
the details of the preference made by the subscriber; the unique registration number
- Every telco shall communicate a unique registration number to the subscriber via SMS, within twentyfour hours of the request, after verifying the subscriber details. The details will have to then be recorded
in the Provider Customer Preference Register. If the details are incorrect, then the telco needs to inform
the subscriber, through SMS, within twenty four hours, the details of errors noted, advising a fresh
request.
- The NCPR should be updated within twenty four hours of registration or deregistration
- All telemarketers and telcos will be permitted to download the complete National Customer
Preference (NCP) data from the NCPR website for which a unique user name and password will be
provided.
- Cannot provide to any person, other than a registered telemarketer, any tariff plan or SMS package in
any form permitting sending of more than one hundred SMS per day per SIM except on ‘blackout days’. - Telemarketer numbers, for sending transactional message, should not have facility for receiving
incoming call or SMS.- Telemarketers on the black list shall be disconnected by every telco within 24 hours
- Every telco shall, before providing any telecom resource to a telemarketer, verify the details furnished
by the telemarketer in its application form, the registration number issued by the Authority and comply
with the subscriber verification guidelines issued by the Department of Telecommunications.
- No telecom resource should be provided is provided to a telemarketer who has been disconnected orblacklisted
- Telcos need to ensure that before sending any SMS to a telecom subscriber, the telemarketer scrubs
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the telephone number of the subscriber with the database received from National Customer preference
register.
- Originating Telco needs to filter messages, so that that no telemarketing SMS, other than SMS opted
by the subscriber is sent to him.
- Every Originating telco shall filter all voice calls received through the telecom resources allocated to
the telemarketers to ensure that no commercial voice call is made to any subscriber, registered with the
National Customer Preference Register.- Complaints: on receipt of a complaint, the Terminating Telco shall immediately acknowledge the
complaint, verify its correctness as per the available Call Detail Record (CDR) within 72 hours, and
forward the complaint to the Originating Telco. The originating telco shall within 72 hours of receipt,
investigate the nature of call or SMS, and issue a notice to the telemarketer, with the details of the spam
call or message. It then needs to inform the Terminating telco, deposit the amount of the fine with the
TRAI, and update the action taken by it in the National Telemarketer register.
Transactional and Service Messages:- No telco shall send any commercial communication, either directly or by mixing such communication
with service communication, through voice call or SMS or Unstructured Supplementary Service Device
(USSD) unless specifically opted, to a subscriber whose name is registered in the National Customer
Preference Register.- The telemarketer shall not to send any unsolicited commercial communication and will not mix any
promotional communications with its Transactional Message sent to a subscriber. A transactionalmessage means an SMS containing:
- Account related information sent to its customer(s) by the Bank or financial institution or insurance
company or credit card company or telco
- Information given by Airlines or Indian Railways or its authorised agencies to its passengers regarding
travel schedules, ticket booking and reservation- Information from a registered educational institution to parents or guardians of its students.
Why is TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) limiting Free SMS to 100 ( Per Day
Per Sim ): we can blame those numbers which were sending you unnecessary SMS of free job, free
PAN service and so on. As a result it is now claimed that almost 50% of all text messages sent in India
are marketing spam. the telemarketers misused the SMS pack from the operators. The Authority is also
aware that unsolicited commercial communications are being sent by unregistered 52 telemarketers.
Such messages can be sent by any person and they are essentially in the category of P2P communications.So bad that an actual Government minister has complained in Parliament about being woken up in the
middle of the night by spam texts. Junk SMSes are the biggest source of irritation for a mobile user in
India today. Every alternate SMS is a solicitation SMS trying to sell you a service or a product. The
government has tried setting up the National Do Not Call (NDNC) registry without much success. Now
they are mooting a National Do Call (NDC) registry. Which means by default no mobile subscriber can
be contacted by the bulk advertisers. Only if you subscribe to certain mailing lists can the bulk advertisers
send you focused SMS. What is the problem here?
1. One, the consumer is complaining that he/she is receiving unsolicited SMS. 2. two, the cost of
sending a SMS is less than 1 paisa for the telecom provider. Hence he is providing bulk SMS packagesto advertisers. 3. Three, a lot of places where you provide your mobile numbers with a sense of trust
are also doubling up as aggregation points where the collector is reselling these mobile number lists for a
commission. 4. Fourth, the customer has no way of reacting to a junk SMS except to register in the
NDNC; that too without any palpable effect. 5. Fifth, there is no law that imposes punishment in the
form of penalty/ fines on either the telecom provider or the bulk advertiser today.
6. Business Model Changes: From Dialup To Broadband: Earlier, Bulk SMS of between 1-5 crore in
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number were being bought from Telecom Operators on a per SMS basis, between Rs. 0.05-0.10 per
SMS, and these were sold to marketers. Two years ago, one Bulk SMS company convinced a telecom
operator circle – like Airtel Karnataka – to allow them to purchase Bulk SMS on the basis of a new metric
– bandwidth. Instead of buying 1 crore SMS for Rs. 0.05 each, they bought SMS capacity on a monthly
rate, on the basis of transactions per second (TPS). It was like moving from dialup to broadband. Today,
Bulk SMS providers can buy 100 TPS (with 100 messages being sent per second) for anything between
Rs. 45 lakh per month, and Tata Teleservices has taken the lead with this model. One VAS company
executive sent us the following rates that they’re paying.
15 TPS at around Rs. 6 Lakhs* + Taxes, 20 TPS at around Rs. 8 Lakhs* + Taxes
Impact: Rajan S Mathew, director general, Cellular Operator Association of India doesn't believe
that there will be any impact on pricing. "All though volumes will definitely take a hit, the cost implication will be
very minimal and will not reach retail subscribers. In fact we have already communicated to the TRAI that this
move is not going to be beneficial for anyone in the eco-system as the unscrupulous elements that send out spam
massages will end up buying more connection to continue to send these spams, and only the end consumer will
suffer," he said.
The impact will be felt during the festivals and special occasions when most people send a lot of SMSes
to wish their near and dear ones. And the impact on the operators will also be the highest on these days as
the discounted rates are not applicable on these days and therefore they earn a lot of profit. And since,
they will not be able to make as much profit, they will be forced to profit from other days by either
increasing the SMS rates or making the discount vouchers costlier or reducing the number of free SMSes
that users get with special vouchers. So now all genuine mobile customers who have one sim and one
number will be able to send out 100 smses, whereas telemarketers will buy hundreds of sim cards in bulk
and send 100 smses from each one of these sim cards. So eventually genuine users will be able to send
only 100 sms messages a day and telemarketers will still send out thousands.
Now a days the least expensive way of communicating is the SMS. And majority of people uses this
mode to communicate easily and directly. whether it be the students, officers or even the govt. And what
do you get by forcing people to buy more sims for msg purpose. Simply that will lead to unnecessary
problems for which later years the govt. itself will have to find solutions. Those favoring this regulation
say that the TRAI's move will help in blocking scores of promotional SMSes fired every day to
subscribers' phone, which will give consumers a sense of relief. Earlier this month, the telecom regulator
mandated that commercial communications be sent between 9 am and 9 pm to all subscribers whether
registered for the National Do Not Call Registry or not. For those who opt to be under the 'fully blocked'
category, a telemarketer cannot disturb you. Alternatively, you can opt for the facility which allows you
to access information on any of the seven segments — banking and financial products, real estate,
education, health, consumer goods, automobiles, communication and entertainment, tourism and leisure.
An exception will be made in case of transaction-related messages such as those from banks, insurance
companies, railways, airlines or telecom service providers for providing information related to customers
or passengers. Companies have been mandated to register with telecom service providers who would
assign them numbers in the 140 series.
Solution for spam: . 1. If they want to stop telmarketing then restrict then to take numbers or open
a department where anyone can complain if they get call or message from a specific number. 2. Imposehefty penalties on Telecom providers who allow their network to be used to deliver unsolicited SMS.
3. Give the mobile customer more control. 4. Give him / her the ability to report SMS abuse.
5. Provide customer a mailbox to reroute all SMS from unknown numbers as emails. SMS will be
delivered over the phone only after the customer white-lists them. 6. Create one time codes that that
customers can pass onto agencies to which they need to provide mobile numbers that entitles them to
SMS the customer a fixed number of times. 7. Crack down on small time phone number aggregators
who sell self created lists to advertisers.