To combat spam calls, telecom department asks telcos to start trials for caller-name display service

Spam Calls

Telecom companies have been directed by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to start the trial for the service that will display caller names to combat spam calls, sources told Moneycontrol.

The department has asked all private telcos to start proof of concept (PoC) trials for Calling Name Presentation (CNAP) in a month, sources added.

Under the pilot, DoT will study whether to implement CNAP on the network or have an in-built provision in the handset before deciding on the final implementation.

The department in March 2022 sought the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI’s) views on introducing CNAP.

After consultation with industry stakeholders, the sector regulator TRAI in February 2024 recommended the introduction of CNAP. The government should issue appropriate instructions for making the facility available on all mobile phone handsets sold in India after a suitable cut-off date from the date of notification.

During the consultation process, private telecom companies, along with industry body IAMAI, informed TRAI that displaying the name from the KYC form could undermine subscriber privacy and adversely affect women's safety.

Telcos then also expressed concerns about increased call set-up time, latency, and the significant investments required to implement CNAP. They noted that currently, only 4G-enabled devices can support this feature, limiting its availability to a large portion of the market.

There are several third-party services such as Truecaller, which display or reveal the name of the caller. The information is mostly crowd-sourced and may not be accurate.

Truecaller India's managing director Rishit Jhunjhunwala recently told Moneycontrol that the CNAP service will complement the company's existing caller ID application service without adversely affecting its business.

Jhunjhunwala also highlighted that the CNAP service will have its own set of challenges in curbing the spam menace in the country. "Telcos will launch their service using KYC data. You can get nine SIM cards using one ID proof, which means the entire family could have the same KYC data. Multiple people will have the same KYC. So that will be a little bit of a challenge,” he said.

In its recommendations, TRAI said subscriber entities holding bulk as well as business connections should be given the facility of presenting their “preferred name” in place of the name appearing in the Customer Application Form (CAF).

The "preferred name" could be the "trademark name" registered with the corporate affairs ministry, the "trade name" registered with the GST Council or any other unique name registered with the government, TRAI said.

It also outlined a technical model for the implementation of CNAP on the telecommunication network.