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If you send more than 100 SMS a day you will end up paying a higher tariff. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Monday said that concessional SMS tariffs offered by operators will be applicable only for 100 SMS a day after which a minimum of 50 paise per message will have to be paid. The move is aimed at tackling unwanted telemarketing SMS.
In September 2011 Trai had imposed a limit of 200 SMS per day per SIM. This restriction had the desired
effect in curbing telemarketing messages to a great extent. However, after the removal of the cap of 200 SMS per day per SIM by the High Court, the number of complaints relating to unwanted messages have increased manifold.
According to the TRAI subscribers undertaking telemarketing activities use discounted SMS packages available in the market, for sending bulk promotional SMSs. Some service providers offer bundled plans and
packages where the SMS charges effectively become close to zero.
“These SMS packs and tariff plans are being misused by unregistered telemarketers to send promotional SMSs to consumers. To prevent unregistered telemarketers from misusing such SMS packs or tariff
plans for sending bulk promotional SMSs, a price restraint has been placed on sending of more than one hundred SMS per day per SIM at a concessional rate,” Trai said.
The subscriber is free to send SMSs beyond this number, however, all such SMSs sent beyond one hundred SMS per day per SIM shall be charged at a rate not lower than the rate prescribed by the Trai. Trai has prescribed a tariff of minimum fifty paise for such SMSs beyond the limit of 100 SMS per day per SIM. The changes effected by the regulations and the order have to be implemented within fifteen days.
To restrict unregistered telemarketers from sending bulk promotional SMSs using software applications, operators have been mandated to put in place, within three months, a solution, which will ensure that no commercial SMSs are sent having same or similar characters or strings or variants from any source or number. The solution will ensure that not more than 200 SMSs with such similar ‘signature’ are sent in an hour.
The lodging of a complaint through SMS has been made easier. Now the complaint can be lodged through SMS by simply forwarding the unwanted SMS to 1909 after appending the telephone number and date of receipt of the SMS.
Operators will also establish a web-based complaint registering system and a dedicated e-mail address to receive such complaints.
Whenever a new customer is enrolled for service, the operators is required to take an undertaking from such customer in the Customer Acquisition Form that he shall not use the connection for telemarketing purpose and in case he uses the connection for telemarketing purposes such connection shall be liable to be disconnected
Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal had last week said he too was a victim of the unsolicited communications. "Every two minutes I get such SMS," he had said.
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