“Do Not Disturb” of TRAI: Will the woes of the consumer ever end?

: Priyankan Goswami

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI’s) promise last week to come with a new mechanism to end consumer woes of receiving unsolicited calls seems to be a true reflection of the acute failure of the much hyped “National Do Not Call Registry” (NDNC Registry) system.

Back in 2007, when the government had approved new guidelines finalized by the TRAI to launch the NDNC Registry system to curb unsolicited commercial phone calls in the name of selling credit cards, loans, offers, etc, there was a huge hue and cry, mostly of hope, amidst Telecom consumers. On the other hand, the Telemarketers, who were threatened with penalty of Rs 500 to Rs 1,000 for every unsolicited commercial call (UCC) made to subscribers registered with the NDNC registry, had feared their business crushing to vile dust as well.

But such fears and hopes both had soon washed away with the Government being not “that successful” to set up an effective agency to maintain this facility in depth. To avail this facility, mobile phone users had to register their numbers with the NDNC. Firstly, the masses were mostly unaware of this facility with lack of adequate steps taken to educate the common consumer. Secondly, the Service Level Period of fourty five days for this filter to apply for a common consumer acted like a trap. Although, it is illegal for a telemarketer to call anybody who is in the Do Not Call List, since the SLA’s came into force only after fourty five days, petty telemarketers could even arguably use the new registrations to make calls. Although officials always dismissed this – some consumers even complain that unregistered telemarketers had probably in fact gone ahead to use the database of “Do not disturb” to make calls (and thereby disturb)!

What we can probably suggest is that instead of coming up with a complex technical model of registering and tracking calls and messages, the threat of unsolicited calls can be well mitigated by the proper usage of the mobile number directories, which the mobile service providers have been recommended to create and maintain by The department of telecommunications (DoT). The directory itself could contain the details of whether the number listed in the directory is supposed to be filtered or not. So a Registered Telemarketer which would have to go though the network of the service provider to connect to the number would not be allowed to do so – if a proper filter is kept on. However, the threat from unregistered telemarketers or others would still be there. In such a case, perhaps only a “Call list” which allows a mobile user to receive calls only from fixed numbers would help.

Whatever the root causes of the “not-so-successful” NDNC Registry or the promises of a future plan, it is the writing on the wall that the Indian Mobile consumers badly need some strict system to make their life less miserable and bring an end to the mess created by telemarketing companies.