TRAI Issues Ban Warning to Telecom Companies

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has announced strict measures against entities misusing bulk connections in a decisive move to combat the menace of spam calls. Telecom companies Reliance Jio, Airtel, Vodafone-Idea, and BSNL will have to immediately cut off the services of any organisation discovered to be using PRI or SIP connections to make spam calls. Additionally, for a maximum of two years, all operators will place these entities on their blacklist. Telecom operators have been given until October 31, 2024, to implement a system that guarantees message flow traceability.

Customer annoyance with spam calls has been a recurring problem, and TRAI has underlined the urgency of addressing this issue. The telecom service providers and the regulators convened a meeting to discuss the situation and decide on these strict measures.

TRAI declared in a release, "This information shall be shared by the TSP with all other TSPs who will, in turn, disconnect all the telecom resources given by them to that entity and blacklist it for a period of up to two years. No new telecom resources shall be allocated to it by any TSP during the period of blacklisting. The technical implementation of entity and telemarketer chain binding for ensuring traceability of the message flow shall be completed by the TSPs by October 31, 2024, at the latest. All the TSPs promised to extend full support to TRAI in curbing the menace of spam calls and implement all the directions of TRAI within the timeframe."

The regulator has stated unequivocally that it will not tolerate spam calls and that those who do so will face severe consequences. To carry out these measures, telecom operators have been instructed to fully cooperate with TRAI. This most recent development is a result of TRAI's continuous efforts to shield customers from obnoxious and unsolicited calls.