Airtel Calls on Reliance Jio, Vodafone Idea to Combat Telecom Fraud Together: Report

Airtel Calls on Reliance Jio, Vodafone Idea to Combat Telecom Fraud Together
Bharti Airtel has reached out to rival telecom operators Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea with a proposal to launch a joint initiative aimed at curbing the rising menace of telecom frauds and scams. The telco has also informed the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) about the proposed collaborative effort, underlining the urgency of a coordinated industry response.

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Also Read: Airtel Urges BSNL, Jio, and Vi to Collaborate in Combating Cyber Fraud in Telecom Sector

Airtel Reaches Out to Competitors and Regulators

In separate letters to the two telecom firms and letters to Telecom Secretary Neeraj Mittal and TRAI Chairman Anil Kumar Lahoti, Airtel cited alarming data — India registered over 1.7 million cybercrime complaints in the first nine months of 2024, resulting in financial losses exceeding Rs 11,000 crore, according to a PTI report dated May 26, 2025. The company stressed that cybercriminals are deploying increasingly sophisticated tactics, including phishing links, fake loan offers, and fraudulent payment pages, to target unsuspecting individuals.

Also Read: Airtel Enhances AI-Powered Spam Detection with Vernacular Alerts and International Call Scanning

Joint Telecom Fraud Initiative Proposed

Updating the telecom department and TRAI on its efforts, Airtel said that to combat “this growing threat” of telecom frauds, spams and scams and in the spirit of unified industry action, it has once again reached out to TSPs with a proposal to launch a Joint Telecom Fraud Initiative on May 14, 2025, as mentioned in the report.

Also Read: Airtel Shares Corporate Connection Details with Peers, Awaits Their Response

The company noted that it had previously written to all TSPs in October 2024, proposing a collaborative framework to address Unsolicited Commercial Communication (UCC). This earlier proposal included mutual sharing of details of enterprise connections used for commercial calling in a standardised format and the creation of a centralised data-sharing platform, modelled on the existing Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) system, to curb spam without disrupting legitimate services.