Mumbai: Ding, ding, ding—another spam message blows up your phone, drowning your screen in an avalanche of useless promotions. Sound familiar? Worse yet, you might miss that one crucial message buried under this clutter. Frustrating, isn’t it? But don’t fret—TRAI has swooped in like a superhero, armed with a groundbreaking solution to liberate us from this daily chaos. By mandating secure and traceable commercial messaging, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India is about to transform how we experience SMS communication, making spam and scams a thing of the past. It’s time to say goodbye to the noise and hello to clarity!
TRAI has implemented robust measures to ensure the secure and traceable transmission of text messages, mandating that all commercial messages must be traceable from sender to recipient. This initiative, aimed at combating spam and fraudulent messages, is set to revolutionise SMS communication in India.
To facilitate the implementation of message traceability, TRAI issued a directive on 20 August 2024, requiring all Access Providers to deploy the necessary technical solutions. While the initial compliance deadline was 1 November 2024, it was later extended to 30 November 2024 to provide additional time for technical upgrades and chain declarations by principal entities (PEs) and telemarketers (TMs). In a further directive issued on 28 October 2024, TRAI extended the compliance timeline to 10 December 2024.
TRAI undertook extensive awareness campaigns, engaging sector regulators like RBI, SEBI, PFRDA, and IRDAI, along with central and state government departments. It also conducted webinars, interactive sessions, and email communications in collaboration with access providers to inform PEs and TMs about the new requirements.
These efforts have yielded significant progress, with over 27,000 PEs already registering their chains with access providers. TRAI has instructed access providers to continue issuing warnings to non-compliant PEs and TMs and ensure that all registrations are completed by the revised deadline.
From 11 December 2024, any message traffic without a defined or matching PE-TM chain will be rejected. TRAI urges all PEs and TMs to expedite their chain declarations to avoid disruptions in message transmission.
This landmark measure by TRAI underscores its commitment to fostering a safer digital environment while enhancing trust in SMS communication.
