TRAI Directions on blocking of bulk international SMS Spam

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has issued a press release where by it has given directions related to sms spam which is originating from international route. The TRAI has issued guidelines on 20th January, 2012

The guidelines which have been issued to all Access Providers and International Long Distance Operators for blocking the bulk international SMS are as appended below:

• As per the provisions of “The Telecom Commercial Communications Customer
  Preference Regulations, 2010” on 1.12.2010, which have come into force from 27th
  September, 2011, the unsolicited commercial calls or SMSs will not be delivered to the customers registered on National Customer Preference Register (NCPR).
• During the implementation of the regulations, several incidences came to the
  notice of TRAI that promotional SMS were being routed through the servers located at international destinations and were getting delivered to customers registered in NCPR. It was observed that generally such SMSs were getting originated from locations within Germany, Sweden, Nauru, Fiji, Cambodia, Bosnia, Albania, Grenada, UK, Jersey, Sint Maarten, Tonga, Vanuatu, Namibia, Panama, Antigua and Barbuda etc. These SMSs contain the headers which are alphanumeric or starting with +91 or numbers with international codes.
• TRAI took serious note of such incidences and had detailed discussions with
  the telemarketers, access service providers and International Long Distance (ILD)
  operators to evolve measures for addressing the above practice of routing SMS through international locations. Based on these discussions, to strengthen the framework for addressing unsolicited commercial communications and to effectively control SMS coming from international locations,

TRAI today issued a direction to all the Access Providers and the ILD operators mandating them to take the following steps, within thirty days, keeping in view the time required to put the necessary system in place:-

• All international SMS containing alphabet header or alphanumeric header or
  +91 as originating country code should not be delivered through the network.
• If any source or number from outside the country generates more than two
  hundred SMS per hour with similar ‘signature’, the same should not be
  delivered through the network. However, such restriction shall not be applicable
  on blackout days.
• Only valid codes associated with the network of those entities with whom
  agreements have been signed by the Access Providers shall be allowed in the
  network.

The above press release on subject has been issued by A. Robert J. Ravi, Advisor (QoS & SP), Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, Mahanagar Doorsanchar Bhawan,
JawaharLal Nehru Marg, New Delhi-110 002 and can be contacted on telephone at 011-23230404 and Fax at 011- 23213036. One can contact his office at E-mail: advqos@trai(dot).gov(dot)in

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