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New Delhi: The communications ministry has sought clarity from the telecom regulator on which licence clauses can be invoked to encash telcos’ bank guarantees (BGs) to recover fines related to spam, or unsolicited communications. A few months ago, in an unprecedented move, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India ( Trai ) urged the government to encash telecom operators’ BGs to recover penalties imposed for their failure to tackle spam effectively. Advt The ministry will decide its future action on the matter based on Trai’s reply, an official privy to the details told ET.
“Since this is the first time that such a situation has arisen, we have to see how we can proceed on this issue,” the official said. Trai is yet to revert to the telecom department ( DoT ) on the clarification. Another official said there is no specific clause in the licence on unsolicited commercial communications (UCC) or spam.
The telcos are bound to offer quality of services (QoS) as required by Trai regulations. But QoS is primarily meant to check network parameters, so that mobile consumers get good services and any discrepancy by the telcos in offering services can be challenged by the authorities. Spam is related to consumer behaviour and there are many stakeholders in the ecosystem, so it’s not entirely focused on telcos, the second official said.
Advt While Trai has issued Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations (TCCCPR) to check spam, there are no provisions in the licence wherein the DoT can penalise telcos. “If DoT issues a notice to encash BGs of telcos for not curbing spam, it will certainly be challenged by the telcos as this is not in the rules,” a third official said. Since BGs are only encashed when companies are not able to make statutory payments due to financial constraints, such a development could affect the credit profile of telecom firms, experts said.
Trai has been imposing fines on telcos—totalling about Rs 141 crore so far—for their failure to curb spam, but it had not realised any sum as operators contend that they should not be held accountable for something which they don’t control or perpetuate. Telcos have been engaged with Trai on the issue and what more can be done to get rid of the menace. Since telemarketers are an important stakeholder in the entire ecosystem, the DoT has already asked Trai to bring such players in the regulatory fold.
Trai is likely to soon issue a consultation paper on the matter. Once telemarketers are brought under some regulatory, or authorisation, framework, they can be held accountable for controlling spam along with telecom operators and will be liable to face consequences, experts said. Currently, these entities are not under any regulations that would hold them responsible for the nuisance of pesky messages and calls, which are also at the heart of numerous instances of financial fraud.
As per current rules, Trai imposes penalties on telcos for spam messages and calls on their networks. Telcos have commercial binding agreements with telemarketers and, as per Trai, operators should recover the penalty amount from telemarketers. But the system is not working as telemarketers keep changing operators.
Also, telcos can’t enforce any conditions on them. Hence, carriers say they are getting penalised for cases where they don’t have any control. By Kiran Rathee , ETTelecom Published On Dec 31, 2024 at 08:49 AM IST Telegram Facebook Copy Link Be the first one to comment.
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