On September 11th 2010, I'll complete three years on the Do-Not-Call registry, and even now, I get a few calls a month (the last one today from +91-11-45197100), and a few SMS' every day, mostly from service providers TM (Tata Teleservices, Mumbai; for example TM-11111111) and LM (Loop, Mumbai; for example, from LM-L_N_P). The move to curtail the sending of SMS Spam in India has been gathering momentum over past few months: The TRAI Chairman has said yesterday, reports the Hindu, that a regulation for addressing the SMS Spam problem should be out by the end of this month. Even with the institution of a 'Do Call Directory', I don't think spam SMS can be curtailed, unless enforcement and punitive damages against telemarketers are strict. The problem today with Bulk SMS is that the trade has scaled, and as it has grown, competition, new entrants and resellers have driven down prices. This has been compounded in particular, by a business model innovation which took place two years ago. By itself, the Bulk SMS trade is not at fault - it was meant to be used for alerts (flights, banks etc), but the lure of scale meant that the business crossed over to the dark side, with SMS Spam and marketing. Business Model Changes: From Dialup To Broadband Earlier, Bulk SMS of between 1-5 crore in number were being bought from Telecom Operators on a per SMS basis, between Rs. 0.05-0.10 per SMS, and these were sold to marketers. Two years…
