As you all know, to curb menace of Unsolicited Commercial Communications (UCC), the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has issued “The Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations (TCCCPR), 2010″ on 1st February 2011. Please find attached both the regulations and the Frequently asked questions list.
These regulations will be effective from 1st February. Companies like ourselves that are providing such bulk sms services has to register with TRAI astelemarketers and sign new agreements with all Access providers (operators/telcos).
There are primarily 3 effects because of this regulation.
From 1st February 2011 you can only send SMS to people who are not in theNational Do Not Call Registry(NDNC). Since about 9 crore people have registered in the NDNC list, we can send commercial communication for the rest of the mobile consumers who are approximately 61 crores.
You cannot send SMS after 9pm and before 9am, all communication should happen only between 09:00 & 21:00 every day. This is for all consumers irrespective of the National Do Not Call Registry(NDNC) list.
You cannot have the “branded” sender Ids like you have now, which will be changed to a number as specified in TCCP Regulations dated 01-dec-2010, page 27, under Schedule -IV “Agreement between Access Provider and Telemarketer”, para 6, copy-pasted here, for your kind reference “(6) The telemarketer shall use alpha-numeric identifier for sending commercial communication in the format having nine alpha numeric characters, first alpha numeric character being code of Access provider and the second alpha numeric character being code of service area, as provided under the direction dated 10th December, 2008 issued by TRAI. The third alpha numeric character will be dash(-) and the fourth being any single digit (1-7) with each digit indicating a specific category of SMS as per schedule-I of the regulations and last five characters being five digit unique identification code provided by respective Access Provider to the telemarketer e.g XY-5ZZZZZ, where X stands for code allotted to Access rovider, Y stands for service area, 5 indicates that this SMS belongs to consumer goods and automobiles category and ZZZZZ indicates five digit unique identification code allotted to telemarketer by the Access Provider.”
As a customer of SMSCountry you need not register as a telemarketer. We have taken care of that and registered ourselves as a telemarketer and we will deliver the messages for you. We have taken care of all the processes and systems that are required to migrate to the new regulations and make the transition smooth for you. for more information on TCCCPR and NCPR (National Customer Preference Registry) please refer https://www.nccptrai.gov.in
The TCCCPR has come up with a customer preferences called National customer preference register (NCPR) where they can receive messages from categories they have unblocked themselves from. NCPR has two categories of SMS
a) Transactional:
i. Information sent to its customer(s) by the Bank or financial institution or insurance company or Credit Card Company or Access Provider pertaining to the account of that customer(s)
ii. Information given by Airlines or Indian Railways or its authorized agencies to its passengers regarding travel schedules, ticket booking and reservation
iii. Information from a registered educational institution to parents or guardians of its students;
b) Commercial: Currently, any messages not in the list above would be classified as ‘Commercial’ messages.
If a consumer on NCPR list, files a complaint for receiving any sms, it will be traced back to the registered company. After 6th complaint and a fine totalling 7 lakhs(for 6 complaints) the company will be blacklisted and cannot do this business for 2 years.
Such extremely hard rules for any company to violate, even by mistake, is a big risk. So SMSCountry being a leader in this industry and focusing on long term growth has taken up this regulation seriously and following every rule to the book. We have decided that as a company policy will only allow delivery to non-NCPR numbers as the risk associated is very very high in the long term interest of the company.
So from 1st february 2011, all messages will be scrubbed and will be only delivered to numbers which are not present in the NCPR list. This means that even if you submit to DND numbers, they will be filtered at our end and will not be delivered.
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