Don’t penalise telcos for unwarranted actions of some other subscribers: COAI

The telecom services providers (TSPs) should not be penalised for unwarranted actions of some other subscribers, as the government aims to strengthen consumer protection against unsolicited commercial communication (UCC) or spam calls/messages, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) said on Monday.

In order to further strengthen consumer protection, the government has warned telecom services providers of fines up to Rs 10 lakh over failure to implement revised regulations dealing with UCC and SMSes.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has introduced amendments to the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations (TCCCPR), 2018 that aim to deal with evolving methods of misuse of telecom resources and promote a more transparent commercial communication ecosystem for consumers.

According to the COAI, the amendment of TCCCPR, 2018 “has been issued without addressing all relevant issues”.

“It is also concerning that the authority has substantially increased the penalty to be imposed over the TSPs. COAI had submitted that Financial Disincentives (FDs) on TSPs, being the only intermediary in this process, do not serve any purpose and have failed to address the issue in TRAI’s all attempts to curb UCC,” said Lt Gen Dr S.P. Kochhar, Director General, COAI.

Another important aspect was to reduce subjectivity from the Regulation as well as compliances, which are based on the relationship between Principal Entities and their consumers, which has not been addressed, he added.

One of the most important demands of the TSPs was that this amendment should be released only after the delivery telemarketers (TMs) are brought under regulation to manage unlawful communication.

“We would like to add here that it is in public knowledge that the DoT has already sought TRAI’s input on the authorisation of TMs. We had submitted to TRAI that the only feasible and optimal approach to handling UCC can be by bringing the Telemarketers under the licensing regime,” said the COAI.

In the current digital landscape, both OTT communication providers and telemarketers (TMs) have become major stakeholders in messaging, and thus, it would be critical to establish a regulatory framework to ensure accountability from all stakeholders in the ecosystem, including OTT platforms and Telemarketers/Principal Entities, said the industry association.