New SMS Regulations: TRAI Directs Telcos to Restart Blocking from April 1

TRAI has directed telcos to reactivate the new SMS regulations from April 1. This will include activating checking filters and blocking traffic that is non-compliant with regulatory standards. However, telemarketers still warn of a large-scale disruption similar to that of 8th March.

Letter to the Telcos

TRAI believes that the telemarketers (principal entities) received “sufficient opportunity to comply with the regulatory requirements". Adding to that, the letter quoted, "the consumers cannot be deprived of the benefits of the regulatory provisions”. Directing telcos to start SMS content scrubbing, TRAI said, “from 1st April 2021, any message failing in the scrubbing due to non-compliance of regulatory requirements will be rejected”.

Notably, the telcos will begin scrubbing after 23 days. On March 8, in line with TCCCPR 2018, scrubbing was activated. Back then, this move caused huge disruptions in critical services like OTPs. Reports suggest that as many as half a billion SMS failed to reach their targets on the same day. At last, the apex regulator ordered temporary suspension of scrubbing and allow businesses more time to test their procedures. Also, companies such as IndiaMart moved to Delhi HC to seek stay on these orders.

TRAI said in the letter that "principal entities have still not fulfilled the regulatory requirements". Citing the data provided by telcos, the regulator added "some of your SMS traffic is not found to be in compliance to the regulatory requirements due to various reasons such as invalid template ID, template not registered etc”.

What is Scrubbing in New SMS Regulations?

Simply put, Scrubbing refers to matching SMS content with a pre-registered template. Every principal entity (telemarketer) who sends commercial SMS will submit their template. If the content doesn't match with the pre-registered template, the telcos block the message. In short:

• A telemarketer sends an SMS in bulk.
• Unregistered Users blocked straightaway.
• TRAI’s blockchain system matches the SMS’s content with their templates.
• The messages that match with the template allowed to go through and the rest blocked.

Till now, the telcos were maintaining a report of principal entities that were using unauthorized templates. The telcos were not blocking any SMS to prevent disruptions. TRAI got the said report on 23rd March and sent the letter on the 25th.

TCCCPR, 2018

TCCCPR 2018 regulation mandates all senders to register their send IDs and SMS content on a blockchain-based system. The system will then filter all kinds of unsolicited commercial communication to protect customers from spamming and SMS frauds. However, after the fiasco on 8th March, TRAI had to turn off blocking SMS. Primarily, a lot of large corporations such as banks, ecommerce platforms and so on reached out to the regulator to intervene.

Response from Telemarketers

TRAI’s order comes after a high-level meeting called by the authority with telecom operators and over 50 telemarketing firms across the country to discuss the hurdles faced by business entities to onboard the complex blockchain-based SMS filtering system.

Industry executives fear that TRAI’s “rigid” norms will ultimately weed away commercial SMS traffic to OTT platforms like Whatsapp, a foreign entity that functions outside the purview of any regulator in India.