TRAI has pushed the compliance deadline for telecom operators to December 1, 2024.
The extension addresses telecom operators’ concerns about potential disruptions to essential services and message delays.
From December 1, unregulated messages from non-compliant senders will be blocked.
A couple of months back, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) issued a new mandate that required telecom operators to initiate traceability requirements on business messages, including OTPs. The new rules were rolled out to curb spam and phishing messages. The deadline for the same was November 1. But now, taking into consideration the telecom operators’ concerns, TRAI has extended the deadline to December 1, 2024.
As per TRAI, the extension simply aims to minimise the potential disruptions that this can cause and give telecom operators more time to adjust the message services. This comes after the telecom operators had cautioned that enforcing the traceability requirements by November 1 could disrupt critical services, as many businesses were not yet compliant with these rules.
They further added that OTPs and other essential messages could face significant delays or even cancellation due to compliance. Hence, TRAI had to extend the compliance period. During this time, businesses need to align with TRAI’s anti-spam and traceability protocols.
TRAI now requires messages containing registered URLs and callback numbers to be whitelisted. Additionally, all telemarketing calls beginning with the “140xx” prefix must transition to the Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) platform, for enhanced security and traceability across networks. This will be compliant after the deadline.
From December 1, any unregulated messages from non-compliant senders will be blocked. For this, telecom operators will provide daily status updates to telemarketers and principal entities (PEs) to assist in meeting the new compliance deadline. This will help them make necessary adjustments before the cutoff date.
To give you a scale of this move, approximately 1.5 to 1.7 billion commercial messages are sent daily. TRAI has also mandated that carriers finalise the PE chain of telemarketing and issue daily reminders to non-compliant companies. Starting December 1, any message associated with undefined or inconsistent telemarketing chains will be rejected.
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Mustafa Khan
Mustafa is new on the block and is a tech geek who is currently working with Digit as a News Writer. He tests the new gadgets that come on board and writes for the news desk. He has found his way with words and you can count on him when in need of tech advice. No judgement. He is based out of Delhi, he’s your person for good photos, good food recommendations, and to know about anything GenZ. View Full Profile
