New TRAI Policy on Spam SMS is All Set to Create Chaos

From February 1 (2011), telecom operators must comply with new guidelines on spam SMS TRAI and while the act is noble, it will create more confusion for consumers.

First, the Fine Print.

- From February 1, there will be only two categories of transactional messages (Stock alerts, alerts rail, river and air transport, messages to parents of school, etc.) and non-transactional or promotional materials (all other categories, unless mentioned earlier - such as email alerts, spam, marketing offers, news alerts, subscribed for SMS services, intra-company or group messages and so on)

- Only transactional messages have full-id sender identity (as TA-HDFCBANK) for others, there will be a 6-digit code (like TA-TA-or nABCDE n12345), where n is the message category and 5 others numbers are the unique code assigned by the telecommunications operator to each reader.

- All non-transactional messages must be passed through the filter NDNC (This means you will not subscribed / paid news alerts or even your mail status message if you are registered with DND) and will be allowed only during 9am. 21:00.

as a consumer, you now have to open each message to verify the non-transactional content. Until now, you can easily delete a message just by checking the names, but now that you open each sms to see if there is something important.

In addition, it means that you need to unsubscribe from DND for more relevant and important messages (TRAI considers non-transactional)?

What do you think? What will the impact of services bulk sms? Operators have begun to test this regulation - if the chances of implementation be delayed is minimal.