Telemarketers support govt plan to regulate commercial SMS, voice services: report

In a move to combat spammers, telemarketing companies have backed the Indian government's plan to regulate entities that deliver commercial SMS or voice services, as per reports.

According to the telemarketers, the move could help regulate personal data misuse while also curbing the spam menace.

The telemarketers' support follows the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) request to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) which sought recommendations on the framework for regulating telemarketers through an authorisation mechanism.

Major telecommunication companies in the country including Reliance Jio, Airtel, and Vodafone Idea have been urging the government for a licensing regime for telemarketing entities and SMS resellers to combat spam related challenges.

Read more: TRAI crackdown on spammers: telcos blacklist 50 entities, disconnect 2.75 lakh numbers

At present, the country over 280,000 businesses that use SMS for marketing, which are funneled through 16,000 aggregators, then handed off to just 15 delivery telemarketers, which then act as the final gateway, distributing all commercial SMS traffic to telecom operators nationwide.

According to telcos, this limits their visibility into the message chain, making it difficult for them to effectively combat spam.

TRAI has been urging both private and public telecom operators to take effective and stringent measures to curb unsolicited and bulk communications using voice calls, amid rise in the consumer complaints about pesky calls.