Pesky SMS: Trai sets cap of 100 messages a day at low rates

In order to curb the menace of pesky text messages from marketers, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India today imposed a cap of 100 per day on the number of short messages that an operator can send to a mobile phone service subscriber at concessional rates. HT reports.

You can now hope to receive less of those irritating sales messages on your mobile phone.

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In order to curb the menace of pesky text messages from marketers, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Monday imposed a cap of 100 per day on the number of short messages that an operator can send to a mobile phone service subscriber at concessional rates.

For every SMS (short message) beyond this limit, an operator will charge at least 50 paise per SMS.

The regulator has also asked operators to put in place technology to ensure that an unregistered telemarketer is not able to send more than 200 SMSes in an hour from a computer or a telephone or any other system.

The primary reason for unsolicited commercial messages is that unregistered telemarketers get bulk discount deals on SMSes from operators, which they use to flood consumers with commercial messages.

“The lodging of a complaint against unsolicited SMSes has also been made easier,” said N Parmeshwaran, a principal advisor of TRAI.

“Now the complaint can be lodged through SMS by forwarding the unsolicited commercial SMS to 1909 after appending the phone number and date of receipt of SMS.”

“The changes effected by the regulations and the order have to be implemented within 15 days,” Parmeshwaran added.