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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.