The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has mandated that all Access Service Providers stop voice promotional calls, whether pre-recorded, computer-generated, or otherwise, from all unregistered senders or telemarketers (UTMs) using SIP/PRI or other telecom resources.

This directive, issued under the Telecom Commercial Communication Customer Preference Regulations, 2018 (TCCCPR-2018), aims to curb the increasing number of spam calls, the Ministry of Communications said on Tuesday.

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In its directions to Access Service Providers, TRAI mandated that all promotional voice calls from unregistered senders/unregistered telemarketers using telecom resources (SIP/PRI/other) must be stopped immediately.

If any unregistered sender/unregistered telemarketer is found to be misusing its telecom resources (SIP/PRI/other) for making commercial voice calls in violation of regulations, leading to consumer complaints against any resource indicators allocated to the sender, all telecom resources of such a sender shall be disconnected by the Originating Access Provider (OAP) for a period up to two years, as per Regulation 25 of the regulations, it said.

“Information regarding the blacklisting of the sender shall be shared by the OAP with all other Access Providers on the DLT platform within 24 hours. These Access Providers will then disconnect all telecom resources allotted to that sender within the following 24 hours,” TRAI said.

It further said, “No new telecom resources shall be allocated to such a sender by any Access Provider during the blacklisting period as specified in the regulations. All unregistered senders/UTMs using SIP/PRI/other telecom resources for making commercial voice calls to citizens must be migrated to the DLT platform within one month of the issuance of this direction and submit a compliance report within seven days thereafter.”

All Access Providers have been directed to comply with these directives and submit regular updates on the 1st and 16th of every month, the statement said.

This decisive action by TRAI is expected to significantly reduce spam calls and provide relief to consumers, it added.