From November 1, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) will implement new rules that may affect the delivery of commercial SMS messages, including OTPs
and important notifications. Under these new regulations, telecom companies will be required to trace transaction and service SMS from banks, e-commerce platforms,
and other financial institutions. Messages that fail to meet these requirements may be filtered and not reach recipients.
Telecom Industry’s Concerns and Request for Delay
Telecom operators like Jio, Airtel, and Vodafone-Idea, represented by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), have expressed concerns that many principal entities (PEs)
and telemarketers are unprepared to comply with the new tracing requirements. This lack of readiness could disrupt the timely delivery of OTPs and other essential messages.
The COAI has therefore requested that TRAI extend the implementation deadline to avoid service interruptions.
Potential Delays in OTP and Commercial SMS Delivery
Reports indicate that telemarketers and PEs have yet to implement the necessary technical solutions to meet these new guidelines.
With India handling an estimated 1.5 to 1.7 billion commercial messages daily, the industry is concerned about potential delays in message delivery.
Telecom companies have suggested that the new rules initially be applied in “logger mode” from November 1 to monitor and resolve issues.
They aim to transition to “blocking mode” by December 1, which would fully enforce message filtering for non-compliant senders.
