100 SMSes a Day
Priyanka Tilve | 27 December 2011
| 100 SMSes a Day;What’s the Big Deal? In a bid to stop Unsolicited Commercial Communication, TRAI has introduced a regulation of imposing a limit of 100 SMS per day per SIM. By PRIYANKA TILVE
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has time and again introduced regulations with a view to resolving and addressing the growing issue of UCC (Unsolicited Commercial Communication). One part of this effort was the introduction of Do Not Disturb (DND), but it was observed that even opting for complete DND could not guarantee respite from pesky calls and SMSes. So as a step forward, TRAI has introduced the The Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations, 2010. The regulation has come into force from September 27, 2011 and according to it, a limit of 100 SMS per day per SIM has been imposed. This also includes Web portals that allow you to send free SMS as well as SMS aggregators. This has been done in order to put an end to the use of ordinary numbers for sending commercial communication. According to TRAI, special SMS packages like ‘2,000 SMS per day’ etc. offered by telecom operators were being misused to send UCC, and by imposing a limit of 100 SMS per SIM per day, it feels it will end the menace for good.
Understanding the Regulation TRAI has created separate categories, namely transactional messages and promotional messages. Transactional messages include those sent by your bank, information sent by registered educational institutes to its students or parents, PNR status, etc. and you will receive these even if you are registered for complete DND. As of now, TRAI has identified a few business categories that need to send such transactional SMS messages and are therefore exempted from the 100 SMS regulation. These are as follows: Dealers of the Telecom Service Providers and DTH Operators for sending request for electronic recharge on mobile numbers. E-ticketing agencies for responding to e-ticketing requests from customers. Social networking sites - Facebook, Twitter, Orkut, LinkedIn and GooglePlus to its members pertaining to activities relating to their accounts. Agencies providing directory services – Just Dial, Zatse, Callezee, Getit and Askme. However, the above mentioned entities will be exempted from the 100 SMS cap only after they provide an undertaking to the service provider that they will not use the said facility to send commercial communication. The entities that are affected by the regulation can make an appeal to the TRAI, and after providing the required undertaking, can seek exemption. On the other hand, a registered telemarketer (TM) is exempted from this rule of 100 SMS per day for sending promotional messages, but this shouldn’t bother you if you have registered yourself for DND. This regulation can seriously hurt those who are not registered as a TM with TRAI and are making use of SMS packages offered by telecom operators to send out promotional SMSes. How will this make any difference to you? Well, as per the rules of the TRAI, a registered TM is supposed to periodically scrub its data with the National Customer Preference Register (NCPR). So if you have opted for DND, then your number will be deleted from the list or your preferences edited depending on the partial or complete DND you opted for. This ensures that you do not receive UCC.
The End of UCC? Speaking on the issue, Rajan S Mathews, director general at the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) said, “Restricting to 100 SMS per day per SIM is not in the consumer’s best interest. While the TRAI has asked the service providers to limit the number of SMS per SIM to 100 per day, even for the subscribers who genuinely use SMS (and may require sending more than 100 SMS per day) as a mode of communication (non-commercial), it may cause unwarranted hardships, especially in times of urgency. Further, it poses a hindrance to individual preferences of the people, thereby violating the right to freedom of speech and expression, creating an artificial barrier. This might pose a serious challenge as customers may complain of interference in their fundamental rights.” “We believe that the regulation is equally effective even without this limit because of two well thoughtout procedural checks defined in the regulation. Firstly, as per the regulation, commercial communication can only be done by a registered TM and not by a normal subscriber. Secondly, in case any subscriber indulges in sending UCC, which only a registered TM is allowed to perform, the subscriber’s number would be disconnected on the second occasion of such a violation. To further strengthen these checks, COAI has also proposed the introduction of a differential tariff should the threshold of 100 SMS per day be exceeded. Such an alternative would be more rational than capping it to 100 SMS per day, since this will not only act as a potential deterrent to any UCC, but may also prove to be a commercially untenable proposition for such telemarketers. Also, the telemarketers could easily use multi-SIMs and organize their daily calls/SMS over these resources to ensure that the daily limit is not breached,” Mathews added. Shaily Shah, research analyst at Gartner, says, “If I were to look at the whole history of where this is coming from, then consumers were definitely very annoyed as even after opting for DND, they were still getting a lot of marketing calls. I think the consumers in general won’t be affected that much because a huge bunch of the population has now moved on to smartphones and they are using other applications to get in touch with each other. Having said that, it’s not entirely a win-win situation and there are customers who will get affected by it. For instance, traders are complaining that because they have not been able to get the stock tips in time or the investment advice in time to their investors, the amount of trading volumes has wavered. Since this regulation has come into effect only recently, everyone is struggling to find a common ground, but looking at the larger picture, I can say that the whole mobile advertising industry will become more organized, controlled and targeted now.”
The Ground Reality Just before this new regulation was introduced, several e-commerce sites, DTH operators and deal sites sent out email and SMS alerts to their customers asking them to deregister their number from DND and instead opt for partial DND to continue receiving SMS alerts from them. After this, the TRAI issued a statement urging customers to beware of such messages and not to deregister from the NCPR. The TRAI stated that such messages were apparently based on a misunderstanding of the regulations and that the recent regulation will in no way impact transactional messages. While on one hand, it may, to an extent, help curb the problem of UCC, the regulation has adversely affected individuals who are heavy text users. College students, for instance, largely communicate via SMS and may see this regulation as one that curbs their freedom. Others likely to be affected include corporate, who use SMS for internal communication, retailers, share brokers, and independent business owners. If it’s any consolation, this limit won’t be applicable on festivals and other select days. For those who depend heavily on SMS, a possible solution could be the use of dual SIM phones or non- SMS messaging apps. Whether this move by the TRAI is effective in resolving the problem of UCC will be clear in the near future, but as of now, it has only given rise to an air of confusion and outrage.
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