Mobile users to remain ‘bugged’ till 1 February

Mobile users who thought that the New Year would bring an end to unwanted marketing calls will have to think again. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has gone back on its earlier promise that such calls would end from January 2011, and now says 'bugged' users will have to wait till 1 February.

In a statement on Tuesday, TRAI said, "Telemarketers registration shall commence from 15 January and other provisions shall come into force from 1 February. Having regard to security audit of the website and other processes involved, TRAI has found it necessary to re-determine the dates for implementation of the regulations."

The telecom authority has issued a month's grace period for operators and telemarketers by issuing a second amendment to its 1 December 'Telecom commercial communications Customer preference regulations'.

"We had asked TRAI for some more time. There is a whole lot of work that has to be done in order to comply with the security concerns, including setting up of infrastructure to filter calls," said Rajan Mathew, director general of the Cellular Operators Association of India.

Under the TRAI plan, telemarketers will be issued a distinct numbering series starting with 70 for mobile and landlines to help mobile users spot such pesky calls. These unique numbers will help even mobile users who are not registered on the do-not-disturb registry to spot unsolicited commercial calls. So far, less than 90 million mobile users have registered themselves with the registry.

Once the rules are implemented, the regulator will severely penalise offending telemarketers, starting from a fine of Rs75,000 and going up to Rs2.5 lakh and blacklisting for two years on the sixth offence.