Trai targets pesky ads: Pay more for 100+ SMSs

TIMES NEWS NETWORK  New Delhi: In a fresh bid to curb unwanted text messages spanning sauna belt to apartments, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on Monday announced new measures, including hiking the tariff for sending over 100 SMSs a day and an easier system to lodge complaints.      Although it decided against levying a penalty that it had proposed earlier, officials said the proposal had not been given up yet. But the immediate focus is on SMSs sent from phones that account for a bulk of pesky  promotions. Trai said within a fortnight, telecom companies would have to ensure that anyone crossing the 100 SMS mark a day would have to pay at least 50 paise more for every subsequent message.      Stating that the telecom regulator had adopted a "zero tolerance" approach towards pesky messages, a senior official said, "This is the first of many measures we are planning to take."  HOW TO BLOCK 1 Call 1909, register for fully or partially blocked category. In partially blocked segment, you can choose from one of the seven sectors —financial services, real estate, education, health, consumer goods & autos, entertainment and tourism 2 SMS to 1909: For fully blocked category, say "START 0". For partially blocked, SMS 'START' with one of the seven options 3 Within 24 hours, you will receive a registration number and the service will be operational within 7 days HOW TO LODGE A COMPLAINT      Via SMS:  Simply forward the message to 1909      Add the phone number of the sender and the date on which it has been sentTrai aims to control cheap bulk SMS packs  New Delhi: The new guidelines announced by Trai to deal with pesky SMSs — the tenth amendment to the rules on commercial communication or unwanted messages — propose to crack down on messages sent using software applications. Within three months, telecom operators have been asked to put in place a system that blocks messages with same or similar characters. The proposed mechanism will ensure that at best 200  messages with "similar signature" are sent in an hour. Once this limit is breached, the service provider can block it.      "We have arrived at the figure of 100 SMSs after a lot of consultation process," the Trai official said. "Our analysis shows that on an average, a person sends two SMSs a day and 47 in a month. The limit we have prescribed is much beyond this." In any case, registered telemarketers, banks and airlines will be exempted from the new rule.      An official said the aim now is to control cheap bulk SMS packs. Currently, mobile service providers offer concessional SMS packs and tariff plans for bulk SMS users. "These SMS packs and tariff plans are being misused by unregistered telemarketers to send promotional SMSs to consumers. To prevent unregistered telemarketers from misusing such SMS packs or tariff plans for sending bulk promotional SMSs, a price restraint has been placed," Trai said.  Times View: Time to act D eclarations by the telecom regulator that pesky calls will be reined in are always welcome, but with each reiteration they lose their credibility unless there is some corresponding action on the ground. The reality is that we have been hearing such threats from the regulator for years now but the pesky calls and messages have not stopped, making most people give up hope that they ever will stop. We hope that this time things will be different.