In a bid to curb pesky calls, SMS from telemarketers, Indian Telecom regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) today imposes a termination charge of 5 paisa per SMS on operators from whose networks commercial messages originate.

TRAI said that the regulations prescribe several steps for protection of customers from unsolicited commercial calls and SMSs. The regulator  has also specified a number of deterrent measures to stop commercial SMSs to telecom consumers who have registered themselves with the National Customer Preference Register.

In order to further deter the sending of promotional/commercial SMSs, the Authority has now prescribed promotional SMS charge of Re. 0.05 (five paisa only) payable by an Originating Access Provider to the Terminating Access Provider for each promotional SMS sent by a registered telemarketer from the network of the Originating Access Provider to the network of the Terminating Access Provider.

To further streamline the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations, the Authority has also allowed Transactional message sending entities to send Transactional messages without registering as telemarketer with TRAI. The Authority has also mandated that these entities will have to enter into a standard agreement with their Access providers for obtaining any telecom resources and has exempted the transactional message sending entities from the limit of 100 SMS per day per SIM.