for imidiate release: 11/03/2021

Trai suspends unsolicited commercial communication norms for seven days

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on Tuesday suspended the implementation of the unsolicited commercial communication (UCC) framework that caused massive disruption in Unified Payments Interface (UPI), Aadhaar-enabled Payments (AePS), internet banking and credit card payments, among others, due on Monday.

“We are concerned about any customer inconvenience caused and have ordered a 7-day temporary suspension of the SMS scrubbing which was activated on Monday,” a senior Trai official told OUR SOURCE. In 2018, telecom regulator has issued a framework for unsolicited commercial communication which it implemented on Monday, mandating telecom service providers to verify every SMS content with a registered text before delivering it.

The new distributed ledger technology (DLT) deployed by telecom operators checks the sender ID and content of every commercial SMS originating from a registered source while SMSes from unregistered senders are simply blocked by the new platform.

Following the development, the one-time password (OTP) services across sectors, including non-financial services including transaction limit alerts and registration of new customers also failed on Monday.

Delhi-based Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) that represents telecom service providers such as Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea, said that due process has been followed to address the issue of unsolicited commercial communication.

“TSPs have sent various communications to the principal entities (on whose behalf messages are sent) to register their content template with the telcos before March 7,” said COAI director general SP Kochhar in a statement.