India now has 119.9 crore phone customers, up from 117.2 crore at the end of March of last year, representing an annual growth rate of 2.3%.
The data indicates that there was an increase in average minutes of usage (MOUs) per subscriber per month from 919 in 2022–2023 to 963 in 2023–2024, representing an annual growth rate of 4.73%.
The TRAI directive additionally stipulated that starting on November 1, 2024, all messages must include a traceable trail from senders to recipients. Rejected messages contain mismatched or unclear telemarketing chains.
Punitive actions for non-compliance have been introduced by TRAI in an effort to discourage the misuse of templates for promotional content.
The government stated, “Repeated offenses will result in a one-month suspension of the sender’s services, and content templates registered under the incorrect category will be blacklisted.”
The rules stipulate that all “headers and content Templates registered on DLT must comply with.”
Furthermore, more than one Header can’t be linked to a single content template.
Traffic from all headers and content templates belonging to a sender will be immediately suspended until the misuse of such headers or templates is investigated and verified by TRAI.
According to the telecom authority, traffic from the sender won’t be revoked unless the sender files a lawsuit against the misuse.
Additionally, delivery telemarketers are subject to comparable penalties if they fail to identify and notify the entities accountable for such misuse within a two-day period, as stated by TRAI.
The Center issued a directive last week to all access service providers to immediately cease voice advertising calls from telemarketers and unregistered senders, regardless of whether the calls were computer generated or pre-recorded.
