Regulators
India’s spam cop tightens the screws on Truecaller, telcos and phone makers
TRAI’s sweeping new anti-spam rules rope in app developers and handset giants, slap fresh penalties on errant operators and give spammers five days to plead their case before the axe falls
NEW DELHI: India’s telecom regulator has drawn up its most muscular assault yet on the country’s spam epidemic, dragging call-management apps, smartphone makers and telecom operators into a tightened web of obligations that could redraw how the country’s 1.4 billion mobile users are pestered or protected.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on March 13th released draft amendments to its Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations, 2018, inviting stakeholder comments by April 12th and counter-comments by April 27th. The scale of what is proposed is striking.
Apps and handsets in the crosshairs
For the first time, TRAI is explicitly targeting third-party spam-filtering apps such as Truecaller, phone-dialler applications and the built-in spam-blocking features baked into handsets by Google, Samsung and others. Under the proposals, spam reports submitted through these apps or directly to phone makers must be routed to telecom operators’ distributed ledger technology (DLT) platforms so they can be treated as formal complaints and trigger action against spammers.
The numbers make clear why the regulator is moving: in 2025 alone, Truecaller identified over 4,168 crore spam calls and 12,903 crore spam messages in India, with the community blocking 1,189 crore spam calls for Indians.
Apps that drag their feet face serious consequences. They could receive regulatory warnings, be declared non-compliant or, most damagingly, lose their intermediary liability protections under the Information Technology Act, 2000.
There is also a pointed restriction: apps must not tag, block or filter calls originating from the 140 and 1600 number series, which are reserved for registered telemarketers, service calls and official communications.
Operators bear the heaviest load
Telecom operators face expanded duties to detect, investigate and act against spam. AI-based systems must be deployed to identify suspected spam activity and verify the identity and usage of telecom resources by anyone flagged by such systems. If suspicious activity recurs, operators may need to conduct physical verification and suspend or disconnect the relevant telecom resources.
TRAI has also proposed additional charges to deter operators from turning a blind eye to bulk spam. A maximum termination charge of 5 paise per minute will apply to robocalls originating from numbers outside the 1400 or 1600 series, payable by the operator on whose network the call originates to the receiving carrier.
Operators must additionally carry out deeper validation of message templates before accepting commercial traffic from senders, and must designate a senior management employee as appellate authority to handle consumer complaints.
Timelines tightened, loopholes closed
The new rules extend the window for operators to examine call detail records when verifying a spam complaint, from one business day to two. The time limit to check for other complaints against the same sender has been stretched from two business hours to a full business day.
Networks will be required to share intelligence on AI-flagged spam numbers with each other within two hours. Once an investigation is initiated, the sender gets five business days to make their case before telecom resources are suspended or disconnected.
Consumer rights get attention too. A 15-day window is introduced for users to appeal an unsatisfactorily resolved complaint; the operator’s designated appellate authority must then resolve it within a further 15 days.
Businesses must come clean
For businesses and telemarketers, compliance tightens significantly. They must pre-declare whether they use automated application-to-person messaging, and failing to do so exposes them to operator action. Registered details, headers and templates must be verified annually to avoid automatic suspension.
If credentials are misused, businesses must act fast: reset credentials within 24 hours and report to law enforcement within two days. TRAI has also closed the old “inquiry loophole” that had allowed companies to send promotional messages under the guise of responding to a customer query. Explicit consent is now mandatory.
Penalties for telemarketers are blunt: first-time offenders lose access to their numbers for 15 days; repeat offenders face a year-long disconnection, blacklisting, device blocking, and must pay at least half the total restoration cost to have numbers reinstated.
The bottom line
India has long had the infrastructure to fight spam. What it has lacked is the reach, stopping at the telecom operator’s gate while millions of complaints piled up in apps and handsets, never feeding back into any formal enforcement system. TRAI’s draft amendments seek to fix that plumbing. If they survive the stakeholder gauntlet intact, Truecaller and its peers will no longer be mere spam detectors. They will be compelled participants in stamping it out.
Regulators
NCF fee sparks consumer backlash over TV pricing and access
84.7 percent oppose NCF on free channels, 57 percent report higher bills.
MUMBAI: For many viewers, the real drama on television may be the bill, not the show. A report by the Esya Centre has found that the Network Capacity Fee (NCF) is widely perceived as an unfair charge, shaping how consumers engage with television services in India. While television itself continues to score well with audiences around 70 percent of respondents reported satisfaction with content quality, the dissatisfaction lies squarely with pricing. As many as 84.7 percent of respondents said they were unhappy paying the NCF for free-to-air channels, highlighting a disconnect between cost and perceived value.
Introduced at Rs 130 for access to a base set of channels, the NCF was later deregulated, allowing distributors to set it independently under the framework of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). The study argues that such fixed charges, especially when increased without corresponding service improvements, tend to reduce consumer welfare rather than enhance efficiency.
The numbers underline the frustration. Around 68 percent of respondents said they do not understand how the NCF is calculated, while 94 percent consider it unfair. More than half 57 percent reported higher monthly expenses under the current pricing system, and a striking 96 percent said they would be more satisfied if the existing framework were removed.
Rather than being seen as a value-linked service fee, the NCF is widely viewed as a mandatory “access toll”, a cost consumers must bear simply to enter the television ecosystem. The report notes that viewers do not associate the fee with better service quality or greater choice, reinforcing the perception that it adds cost without adding value.
This has broader implications for market participation. Fixed charges like the NCF, the study suggests, influence whether consumers subscribe at all. When such costs rise, users are more likely to opt out rather than adjust their viewing habits, potentially shrinking the market.
In effect, the current pricing design appears to redistribute value within the system rather than improve it for consumers. The findings point to a growing sentiment that the NCF is less about enabling access and more about shaping it, often at the viewer’s expense.
