The Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations, 2010

On 1st December 2010,The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) issued “The Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations, 2010”.This Regulation covers both Commercial calls as well as SMSs. It will be effective from 1st January, 2011. For more details please see below :

1. All promotional messages will go as previously to subscribers not registered on NDNC/NCPR

  • Since there are steep penalties for violations, there will be no exceptions to NDNC checking for promotional messages.
  • Sender id will change to be numeric only, wherein number is a telemarketer registration number of provider.
  • This is applicable for DB push messages as well as Bulk SMS promotional messages of all clients.

2. TRAI Defined Transactional messages are of the type below

(i) Information sent to its customer(s) by the Bank or financial institution or insurance company or credit card company or Access Provider pertaining to the account of that customer(s);

(ii) Information given by Airlines or Indian Railways or its authorized agencies to its passengers regarding travel schedules, ticket booking and reservation;

(iii) Information from a registered educational institution to parents or guardians of its students;

(iv) Any other message as may be specified by the Authority, from time are considered “Transactional messages” and sent to all mobile subscribers irrespective of whether they are on the NDNC /NCPR registry.

3. All other messages sent via provider portal/any api, excepting the categories below :

(i) Information sent to its customer(s) by the Bank or financial institution or insurance company or credit card company or Access Provider pertaining to the account of that customer(s);

(ii) Information given by Airlines or Indian Railways or its authorized agencies to its passengers regarding travel schedules, ticket booking and reservation;

(iii) Information from a registered educational institution to parents or guardians of its students;

(iv) Any other message as may be specified by the Authority, from time are not considered “Transactional message”;

  • So for now the client has only one option for non-Transactional messages.
  • Send messages only to subscribers not on registry.
  • Sender id will be of the form XY-612345

TRAI has released a set of regulations on Dec 1, 2010. See links below for details :

Press release

http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/trai/upload/PressReleases/776/FINALPRCNIT1DEC.pdf

Full document

http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/trai/upload/Regulations/98/regulation1diccndiv.pdf