Make mobile apps, portals more user-friendly, effective for spam-related complaints: Trai to telcos

New Delhi: Continuing its offensive against pesky communication, telecom regulator Trai on Monday directed telcos to spruce up their mobile apps and web portals to make them more user-friendly for registration of spam-related complaints and settings of preference and consents.

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has also made it clear that all access providers will be required to submit a performance monitoring report on a monthly basis, as opposed to the previous quarterly reporting cycle.

"In its ongoing effort to mitigate the issue of Unsolicited Commercial Communication (UCC), commonly referred to as spam, the Trai has mandated access providers to enhance their mobile apps and web portals to make them more user-friendly for registration of UCC complaint and settings of preference," the regulator said in a release.

Trai has mandated access providers to ensure that options for UCC complaint registration and preference management are easily accessible on their mobile applications and websites. Additionally, essential details for the registration of complaints should be automatically populated, if users grant permission to access their call logs and other relevant data, it said.

To strengthen monitoring mechanisms for UCC, Trai has implemented amendments to the Performance Monitoring Report formats (PMRs), according to the release. In order to have more granular monitoring, all access providers will be required to submit performance monitoring reports on a monthly basis now.