Reliance Jio added 30.5 lakh subscribers in March, as its subscriber count exceeded 43 crore, compared to 42.71 crore in February.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has directed telecom operators to make changes in the code of practices (CoPs) around headers and content templates of telemarketing messages under the TCCCPR 2018 rules and comply with the direction within 30 days.
The top five service providers constituted 98.38 per cent market share of the total broadband subscribers at the end of February 2023.
Vaghela's remarks comes in the backdrop of telecom operators and broadcasting entities alleging that OTT platforms have been subjected to lenient regulatory framework, which provides them an unfair edge.
The telecom service providers are required to keep the records of all the operation and maintenance command logs for a period of 12 months, including the actual command given, who gave the command, when it was given with date and time and from where.
Spam calls pitching financial products are more detrimental versus others as they may force consumers to make unwise decisions. Abuse of customer database by big brands should be pulled up by regulators
“Only BSNL was reporting the dial-up subscribers until March 2021 and afterwards BSNL was also not reporting any dial-up subscribers,” TRAI said in its note.
The net gain in the wireline segment was 0.28 million customers while mobile telephony recorded a net gain of 0.09 million subscribers.
The development follows after the regulator learnt about major network outages in the country of prolonged duration especially in the border and hilly areas, which adversely affect the quality of services being provided.
Telecom Regulatory Authority of Indian (Trai) held a review meeting with telecom operators like Bharti Airtel, Jio, and Vodafone Idea (VIL) on issue of UCC detect system.
The TRAI chairman also noted that India's focus must remain on using tech to enable social and inclusive development, unlike developed countries where the focus is more towards making monetary gains.
TRAI has advised players to write to the Telecom Department, to flag the issue of low-quality handsets.
Trai has made it clear to operators that it will tighten service quality benchmarks, for which a consultation process will be initiated.
The move is expected to come as a relief to mobile users, annoyed by deluge of unauthorised, pesky promotional messages.
The industry has long been demanding a level-playing-field with communications OTTs, emphasising that regulatory conditions and licence treatment must be made uniformly applicable for similarly placed players.
The move comes after DoT collected feedback from the public through an IVRS (interactive voice response system) call around call drop, quality of calls etc.
In November 2022, the telecom regulator proposed Calling Name Presentation (CNAP), a feature that aims to allow users to identify callers
The regulator has invited comments from interested entities around reducing complications as well as addressing gaps in the existing rules to manage convergence of technologies across IT, telecom, broadcast and space sector.
India's largest telco Reliance Jio cemented its lead in the market adding 14.26 lakh net subscribers in November, whereas Airtel added 10.56 lakh users.
Speaking at a Broadband India Forum summit on SatCom, Vaghela said the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) will soon make recommendations to make permissions required for satellite communication from various ministries -- Information and Broadcasting, Space and Telecom -- seamless to enhance ease of doing business in the sector.
The SMS sent during disaster and non-disaster situations but without any direction under the Disaster Management Act, however, through the common alert protocol (CAP) will be charged 2 paise termination charge by the telecom operators on whose network it is sent.
A consultation paper seeking inputs from stakeholders is now on TRAl's website, where it will take written comments on the paper till December 27, and counter-comments till January 10
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) said that Unsolicited Commercial Communication (UCC) or pesky communication is a major source of inconvenience to the public and impinges on the privacy of individuals.
The bill proposes to bring internet-based calling and messaging services under the telecom rules as well as strengthen security for consumers.
The provision that seeks to make OTT services like WhatsApp, Gmail, Telegram and Signal requiring a license from the government is particularly silly