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TRAI's New Rules to Curb Spam Calls: What Common People Need to Know!
- •TRAI has introduced new regulations to combat spam and annoying commercial calls effectively.
- •Telecom companies must now act on suspected spam calls without waiting for customer complaints.
- •First-time AI-detected violations will lead to a 15-day outgoing service suspension; repeated offenses could result in up to one year of service disconnection.
- •Call management apps like Truecaller will not be allowed to tag, block, or filter calls from numbers starting with 160.
- •Customers can block promotional calls by sending 'BLOCK PROMO' to 1909, while transactional and government communications remain unaffected.
Key Questions Answered
Under TRAI's amended regulations, telecom companies must take direct action against suspected spam numbers flagged by AI or machine learning systems without waiting for customer complaints. If five or more CLI numbers of a sender appear suspicious within a 10-day period, telecom operators must suspend outgoing services for 15 days on the first offense and disconnect all telecom resources for up to a year for repeated violations.
Customers who want to block all categories of telemarketing calls must send an SMS with the text 'BLOCK PROMO' to 1909. This will block promotional commercial communications while leaving transactional, service, and government communications unaffected.
TRAI's new rules specify that call management apps and similar services are not permitted to tag, block, or filter calls originating from number series designated by the authority, such as numbers starting with 160. Instead, individual users retain the ability to manually block or filter calls on their devices according to their own preferences.
