Do Not Call gets new teeth

In a move aimed at curbing unsolicited marketing calls, the regulator on Wednesday announced a number of measures including heavy penalties on defaulting tele-marketers, limiting the number of short messages to 100 a day, reports HT.

Life will become easy for mobile subscribers from January.

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In a move aimed at curbing unsolicited marketing calls, the regulator on Wednesday announced a number of measures including heavy penalties on defaulting tele-marketers, limiting the number of short messages to 100 a day, no telemarketing calls between 9 PM and 9 AM even for unregistered subscribers, and a separate number series for telemarketers.

This is part of the “The Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations, 2010” announced by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

The existing National Do Not Call (NDNC) directory will be replaced by the new regime under which subscribers would have choice of registering under “partially block” category, in which they will get messages in the categories they chose.

The seven categories are financial services (banking, insurance, financial products, credit cards), real estate, education, health, consumer goods and automobiles, entertainment (communication, broadcasting, entertainment, IT), and tourism and leisure.

No commercial communication, even for unregistered customers, shall be sent between 9.00 pm and 9.00 am. Separate numbering series starting from 70 and a unique SMS header will be allocated for telemarketers.