Stricter norms set by telecom regulator TRAI to deal with the menace of pesky calls and SMSes may not bring much relief to the consumers, according to the Cellular Operators’ Association of India (COAI).
Flagging loopholes in these regulations, the COAI on Friday said that these norms do not address a number of issues, including that of unregistered telemarketers and spam via OTT service providers. Additionally, they come with “extremely unfeasible” timelines.
The industry body added that the operators would need to invest at least ₹200-₹300 crore to implement the new system as per the new norms. “Though the complaint-redressal mechanism has been made more prompt and robust, but detection and blocking of spam from unregistered telemarketers has not been addressed in this regulation,” said Rajan S. Mathews, director general, COAI.
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‘Complex regulations’
Pointing out that the new norms do not address telemarketing activities via OTT service providers such as WhatsApp, Mr. Mathews said the “complex regulations” will further encourage telemarketers to shift their business to OTT, making the rules redundant while rendering the efforts and investments of operators futile.
“As this system has not been implemented elsewhere in the world, it is difficult to quantify the exact investment or the time involved. But roughly, it will be well in excess of ₹200-₹300 crore for tailoring of the system,” he replied when asked about the investments.
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He said the December timeline given to operators to comply with the new norms was “extremely unfeasible” and industry would need at least one to one-and-a-half years to put the full system in place.
The rules, released by the TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) last month, provide for “fine grained control” to customers over preferences, including options such as the time window to allow for specific types of unsolicited communication.
The rules lay down obligations for the telecom operators, including evolving a Code of Practices, maintaining records and registering customers’ preferences and mandating the adoption of blockchain or the distributed ledger technology.
“This is complex, time-consuming and a new territory. No cost-benefit analysis has been done to quantify the material impact that the changes will bring in. No other market has requirements this stringent,” Mr. Mathews said.
In the new rules, the regulator has said that operators need to ensure that all the devices registered on their network support all the permissions required for the functioning of its DND App and to derecognise devices that do not permit functioning of such apps. “This regulation is not practically enforceable,” Mr. Mathews said.