It is a sorry state of affairs that mobile and landline subscribers across India must live with unsolicited messages and phone calls offering everything from unbelievable airline travel packages starting at `500, selling a generator to beat the summer heat or purveying a 3BHK sea-view apartment in South Mumbai

or a similarly swank residence in Gurgaon/Noida. Desperate real estate agents blitz cellphone users all week, and even on weekends, and then of course there are magic cures for everything from hairfall to a swelling waistline! With the holiday season looming, get ready for a blitz of “attractive” four-nights-five-days options in Bangkok, Singapore, or wherever... And don’t forget annoying credit card offers with holiday vouchers or, post mobile number portability, an incredulous voice asking why on earth you wouldn’t want to change your service provider! It almost seems these pesky calls and SMSes are here to stay forever, and no one can do anything.
More than a quarter of the year has passed since the January 1, 2011 deadline by which Trai, India’s telecom regulator, had promised to end — or rein in — this menace. The pesky calls/SMSes are still with us, with Trai having pushed back the deadline twice. The January 1 deadline was first deferred till March 31; and now that this date too is long past, there is no clarity on what the deadline is — if there is one. The Trai chairman had pledged at one point that action would be taken in 15 days, which too has passed or will soon pass. The hurdle appears to be putting in place infrastructure allowing effective filtering of unwanted calls and text messages. The department of telecom has to allocate a special code number for telemarketers; for this it has to make the necessary changes, such as upgrading systems in all fixed line exchanges across the country. It appears this might take a long time, if it happens at all! There is a genuine security issue — as monitoring of such calls will be difficult, particularly if local ones, unlike an STD call where one can see at least the place from where it is originating as every city has its own code. There is scope for mischief-mongers to intrude into the system and misuse it, therefore ways to deter such activity must be in place. The DoT has already allocated a number code for mobile telemarketers; it is only in the case of landlines that the matter is stuck.
Trai has now put the ball in the DoT’s court, saying it was yet to be allocated a special series of landline numbers through which telemarketers can operate. The DoT, however, says it is up to Trai to find a solution as it has been issuing deadlines on the ending of pesky calls. It now transpires that Trai has been announcing these deadlines without even discussing the matter with the DoT, which has a major role to play as it has to put in place the physical changes in the system by which such calls can be monitored and stopped. There are also some errant telecom companies which offer to sell cheap bulk SMSes to telemarketers, this being a good source of revenue. The DoT has warned them to stop this, but some big players are continuing this practice. It is learnt the DoT is in the process of forming a technical experts’ committee to sort out the security angles involved regarding landlines, particularly regarding landlines, and it is expected to find a way out in two to three months. In the meantime, phone users in this country have to suffer such intrusive calls/messages even though the technology to block them is easily available worldwide.