Spam & Jam: Telcos voice concern over Trai's new norms

A move by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) to curb spam could ironically increase the menace with the regulator taking away the right from call management apps like Truecaller to filter out or block promotional and marketing calls, industry executives said.

Telecom operators have also slammed the new regulations, terming them anti-consumer and unilateral as the real perpetrators of spam like the telemarketers and over-the-top (OTT) players are left untouched.

In a letter to the regulator last week, the telcos, through the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), said various provisions of the anti-spam regulations were against the functions of Trai and the license conditions. They have sought that the implementation of the rules be halted till the issues raised by them are addressed. All the three private operators –Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea –are members of COAI.


ET has seen a copy of the letter.

On February 12, Trai came out with the amended Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations (TCCCPR). The various provisions of the new rules would come into effect from 30 to 60 days.

While the new rules tighten control on telcos and telemarketers, OTT players, who are the primary stakeholders, have been left untouched. This, even though the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had written to Trai in October last year, seeking a framework for bringing telemarketers under a regulatory framework. The regulator, however, is yet to commence a consultation process for it.

Apart from increasing financial penalties on telecom operators, the new rules also bar call management apps from blocking designated numbering series for promotional and marketing calls like the 140 series. As per the regulations, no call management application or similar services shall tag, block, filter, or restrict incoming calls or messages originating from the designated number series assigned for commercial communications as well as communication sent by the government.

“Any call management application that facilitates blanket blocking of such designated number series or tag it as spam shall be deemed non-compliant with these regulations,” the regulations said. While there are a few call management apps like Hiya, Getcontact, Whoscall, CallApp, Eyecon etc, Truecaller has been the biggest and most prevalent, with around 30 crore customers in India. The app has a feature, which when enabled, allows users to block 140 series numbers, which are promotional and marketing calls. But the company must disable the feature because of the new rules.

A query sent to Truecaller remained unanswered at the time of going to press.

The telcos have alleged that Trai has introduced provisions in the new regulations to empower itself reserving the right to prescribe regulatory norms “from time to time,” but in the garb of it, the authority was not only bypassing the requirements to lay the regulations into the Parliament, it was also trying to take powers from the regulations to issue directions any time, without even consultation with the stakeholders, violating the Trai Act.

Citing the Trai Act, the COAI said under section 37 of Trai Act, the regulator was bound to present its regulations before Parliament to ensure parliamentary oversight over the regulatory framework.

However, the telcos allege that in the TCCCP (Amendment) Regulation 2025, and in many other regulations, the authority has given itself such power to revise definitions, penalties, and compliance timelines without bringing the changes back to Parliament.

“This could mean that the regulatory norms introduced by Trai in future, through these self-empowering provisions, would not meet the requirements of laying before Parliament,” the letter said. “Under Section 11 of the Trai Act, Trai does not have enforcement powers over telecom licensing, security verification or Know Your Customer (KYC) compliance, which falls under the DoT’s jurisdictions, including but not limited to senders, PEs, telemarketers, etc.”