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Our Bureau

DoT panel to examine the issue

New Delhi , July 31

In a breather to mobile content providers and cellular operators, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has deferred its direction to stop using short codes starting with digits 0,1,7,8 or 9, used for SMS based services, by three months. TRAI said that since the Department of Telecom had constituted a committee to examine the issue, its order stood deferred.

"DoT has decided to constitute a Committee to examine the issue of use of levels for short codes for accessing the network for SMS and other services. In view of the above, it has been decided to extend the date for reporting the compliance of this direction by three months," said a TRAI note.

The TRAI had earlier directed cellular service providers to immediately stop use of short codes that start with either of the digits 0,1,7,8 or 9. The operators were asked to comply with the order by July 31. Currently a number of mobile content providers use short codes like 7333 (Rediff) and 8888 (Indiatimes) to offer services like ring tone downloads, games and polling. Some of the TV channels have also been using short codes based SMS services starting with these digits for voting and interactive services.

These short codes have been a major revenue churner for both mobile operators and the content providers because they were categorised as premium service and were charged at Rs 6 per SMS. Now the operators can offer these services for three more months until the DoT's committee takes a view. TRAI had said that short codes starting with these digits were not permissible under national numbering plan. However, the industry voiced its concerns against discontinuing the codes being used as they had invested huge amounts of money promoting these short codes.

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