India's Telecom regulator TRAI yesterday issued regulations covering the unsolicited (spam) calls and text messages communications to subscribers. This follows the failure of the Do Not Call Registry - just 340, 231 complaints, a few hundred from me - but isn't quite the Do Call Registry that was expected. What it does, is provide a framework for registered telemarketers to operate in, and limits alternatives available for unregistered telemarkters, while at the same time, addressing only those subscribers who want to opt out of unsolicited communication. Download the regulations here (PDF), and the press release. The leeway that telemarketers have is now very limited: just desserts for abusing the system, and in particular, offering a loan to India's Finance Minister in the middle of an important meeting. There also appear to be a few issues, and a few unintended casualties (especially in the enterprise mobility space), which we'll explore in another post. For now, some important details we've culled out from the regulations: For Subscribers: - Subscribers can now only send p2p SMS', but not buy SMS packs that allow more than SMS' a day, and all packs that allow more than 100 SMS' per day will not be available for renewal. This has been done to discourage unregistered telemarketers from setting up modem farms, bypassing the telemarketer registration framework. If someone sets up a modem farm, then they'll have to pay P2P SMS rates. - Single number for registering, deregistering and complaints, across telecom operators, for both wireline and wireless:…
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