The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has extended the traceability requirement for business messages sent by OTPs from November 1 to December 1, 2024. The extension aimed to curb spam and phishing but also preyed on telecom operators to troubleshoot potential problems with message services.
Telecom operators’ warnings of disruption
Telecom operators have warned that the November 1 early deadline could cause significant delays in transmissions, which could affect critical services as many businesses are not yet ready to comply. TRAI risked cancelling important messages like OTPs and extended the deadline.
Updated timeline for blocking non-compliant messages
According to the new timeline, unregulated messages will be blocked starting December 1. Telecom companies will send daily updates on their status to telemarketers and principal corporations (PEs) to ensure that necessary adjustments may be implemented before the revised period.
Industry-wide impact and monitoring measures
With an estimated 1.5 billion to 1.7 billion commercial messages sent daily, TRAI’s decision aims to avoid widespread disruption. The regulator also directed carriers to complete the PE chain of telemarketing and issue reminders to non-compliant companies daily. Messages in undefined or inconsistent telemarketing chains will be rejected from 1 December.
Enhanced anti-spam measures
This is the second extension granted by TRAI to help ensure compliance. The regulator also enforced a whitelisting requirement for messages with registered URLs and callback numbers and recently mandated that all telemarketing calls starting with “140xx” transition to a Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) platform.
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