Curbing spam: COAI says minimal disruptions expected as SMS traceability kicks in 

phone user

Private telecom operators have started rejecting messages with undefined or mismatched telemarketer chains in keeping with a TRAI directive to curb pesky messages. Extensive preparations have been made to ensure a smooth transition, minimising disruptions for consumers, they said.

Telcos have deployed the necessary solutions and are ready to implement the PE-TM binding process to comply with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) directive.

"From December 11, 2024, the blocking mode will be fully operational. Any message where the telemarketer chain is undefined or does not match will be rejected in accordance with TRAI's directives," Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) director-general SP Kochhar said.

COAI represents Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea.

The mandate for traceability is one of the several measures put in place by TRAI to combat spam and unwanted communications.

The regulator asked telecom companies to “whitelist” messages that contain URLs, OTT links and similar content to help prevent online scams.

Whitelisting requires entities to send commercial messages to provide comprehensive information about their URLs and OTT links to the telecom companies. The companies then input this information into their blockchain-based distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform. If the submitted information matches, the message is allowed through, if not, it is blocked.

This whitelisting mechanism has been functioning effectively for over two months.

The directive, issued on August 20, requires all commercial messages to have traceable origins through defined principal entity-telemarketer (PE-TM) chains.

It was to be implemented from November 1 but then the deadline was extended to December 11 following industry’s concerns about widespread disruptions, as many telemarketers and business entities such as banks were not ready.

TRAI reported that, as of November 30, approximately 27,000 principal entities had registered their telemarketer chains with the process continuing rapidly.

The regulator has been pushing to implement the whitelisting and traceability mandate since the previous year. The purpose of ensuring traceability is to address the numerous misuse of headers and templates in commercial messages. Without traceability, it is impossible to understand the entire messaging chain.

Only registered principal entities are allowed to send promotional and marketing messages to mobile consumers.

To prevent the misuse of headers and content, the regulator has directed the immediate suspension of traffic until verification is completed. Traffic from the sender will only be reinstated after legal action has been taken against any instances of misuse.

COAI confirmed that over 90 percent of PEs responsible for the bulk of commercial traffic have successfully registered their chains.

With an estimated 1.7 billion commercial messages sent daily, the directive underscores the scale of potential disruption if unregistered messages were to be blocked.

To facilitate the transition, telcos began implementing PE-TM binding in a logger mode from November 1, allowing them to identify and address failures without blocking messages.

COAI said its members also engaged with nearly 18,000 telemarketers and over 300,000 principal entities to ensure compliance by raising awareness, guiding technical changes, and addressing operational requirements.

Kochhar said the industry was technically ready to enforce the PE-TM binding process to ensure safer and more transparent communication channels.

(Disclosure: Moneycontrol is a part of the Network18 group. Network18 is controlled by Independent Media Trust, of which Reliance Industries is the sole beneficiary.)