TRAI’s new regulations offers users more control to block pesky calls

In a relief to telecom customers in India, TRAI in unsolicited commercial communication rules under which an individual can now revoke permission that they have granted to any commercial entity for a service. A month after the rules are notified, users can set their preferences on when they would like to receive commercial communications as well as preferred modes of communication- call or SMS. Under these new norms, TRAI has asked telecom operators to allow customers to set their preference using a mobile app that is developed by them or the regulator, by sending SMS to 1909, website, etc. without paying any money for these services. This is a new addition to existing options for subscribers to partially or fully block any commercial communication. Trai has increased the penalty cap on telecom operators Rs 50 lakh in a month from Rs 5 lakh in previous regulations for violations of the norms. Telecom operators are given 120 days to ensure the modification made by subscribers around receiving tele-marketing or business calls is updated in 15 minutes, and commercial communication is caused by the customer as per the modified choice after 24 hours of request. Furthermore, to prevent leakages of subscriber information, the regulator ordered telecom operators ...