TRAI Regulation

Dear Valued Customer,

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As you may already be aware, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and the Department of Telecommunications(DOT) have released a new regulation which states that all promotional messages submitted will be charged an extra termination charge @ 5ps + taxes effective 1800 hrs IST 25th October 2011.

To comply with the new regulation, we are left with not many options but to pass on the same to our valuable customers. Therefore we are introducing a new CREDIT SYSTEM in our panel named Termination Credits, the cost of which would be 5 ps+ taxes per credit. The existing credits can be used only if you have adequate Termination credits in your account. You will also have the privilege to transfer the existing credits to Termination credits by matching the applicable rates by deducting credits equivalent to 5 ps + tax from your existing credit.If this sounds a bit confusing for you, please get in touch with your account managers who will be more than happy to guide you through the entire process.

As you might be aware by now, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has issued a new regulation which after multiple delays and updates, is due to go into effect on September 27, 2011. These regulations are designed to put an end to unsolicited commercial communications (UCC) to subscribers of National Do Not Call (NDNC) register, now enhanced and renamed as National Customer Preference Register (NCPR). Although the regulation is aimed to significantly curb UCC, it brings a positive change to the industry by allowing full access to the NCPR/DND database to registered telemarketers and easy registration/deregistration process etc. Having said that, I would like to bring your attention to a few things which will change the way we have been doing business until now.

Bulk Messaging has been divided into two categories, namely Transactional and Promotional.

Definition of Transactional Messages

  • Information pertaining to the account of its customer sent to the customer by a licensee or Bank or financial institution or insurance company or credit card company or depositories registered with Securities and Exchange Board of India or Direct to Home Operators.
  • Information given by Airlines or Indian Railways or its authorized agencies to its passengers regarding travel schedules, ticket booking and reservation.
  • Information from a registered educational institution to its students or their parents or guardians.
  • Any message transmitted by or on the directions of the Central Government or State Government, TRAI or any agency authorized by TRAI, or on the directions of bodies established under the Constitution.

Only messages with the above nature will qualify as transactional message.

Definition of Promotional Messages

Messages which do not qualify as transactional messages are Promotional, until TRAI appends the existing Transactional List with further categories.

DND Scrubbing

  • Promotional Messages will be DND Scrubbed i.e. messages will not terminate on DND numbers except for NCPR (based on customers preference)
  • Transactional Messages will NOT be DND Scrubbed i.e. messages will be terminated on DND numbers.

Timing

  • Promotional Messages will be delivered from 0900 hrs to 2100 hrs only.
  • Transactional Messages will be delivered 24 x 7.

Sender ID

Promotional Messages will have Unique sender IDs based on the categories as listed in NCPR. Categories are as follows:

  • Banking/Insurance/Financial products/credit cards
  • Real Estate
  • Education
  • Health
  • Consumer goods and automobiles
  • Communication/Broadcasting/Entertainment/IT
  • Tourism and Leisure
  • None of the above categories

Promotional Sender IDs will be in the format of XY-1ZZZZZ where XY stands for Operator Code with Area Code, eg. TD, BL, LM etc; 1 stands for the category as listed in NCPR; and ZZZZZ stands for the 5 digit code provided to the telemarketer by the Access Provider. No other types of sender IDs will be used including dynamic sender ID, Numeric Sender ID etc. Our customers will be privileged to use the multiple sender IDs that has been allotted to Us by different operators.

Transactional Sender IDs will be in the format of XY-ABCDE where XY Stands for the operator code with area code and ABCDE stands for a 5 digit Alpha-Numerical code as desired by the customer.

Penalization

Violation of the above regulation will attract incrementing penalties starting from Rs. 25,000 to Rs. 2,50,000 and blacklisting for a period of 2 years thereafter.

The above regulations are welcomed by Us and it gives us immense pleasure to let you all know that we are all geared up to go ahead with the regulations as all the required amendments have been made at our end and we have successfully tested the same. Customers will be given the privilege of selecting the category at their end and initially a verification will be made at our end to ensure that the same falls in the right category. For the time being, considering the huge risk that revolves around terminating messages to DND/NCPR, we have opted to completely avoid sending messages to DND regardless of the NCPR. Transactional messages, however, will be terminated on DND numbers. Real time DND scrubbing will be done at our end and real care will be taken regarding the time window, which means peace of mind for our customers. Our feature rich - future ready panel will continue providing the best service in the industry, with complete adherence to the present regulation and/or any future regulations to come.

Please get in touch with your account manager or our Support team for further clarifications that you might need regarding this. Thanking you once again for your esteemed patronage with Us.