India Telecom Assoc: Remove Penalties for Unsolicited Calls

BANGALORE -(Dow Jones)- Mobile phone industry body Cellular Operators Association of India Tuesday termed as "unfair" the move by the country's telecom regulator to impose financial penalties on telecom service providers for unsolicited calls and short messages, asking for the penalties to be removed.

"We are all greatly discouraged and concerned that the authority is seeking to impose penalties on service providers for the unsolicited commercial calls made by telemarketing agencies over whom the service providers have little or no control," COAI said in a letter to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.

COAI, which represents nine operators using GSM communications technology, urged TRAI to take "powerful actions" against the telemarketers rather than the telecom service providers.

TRAI said earlier Monday that, for a first unsolicited communication, a service provider would have to pay a penalty of up to INR5,000, potentially rising to INR20,000 for each subsequent communication.

A telemarketer would have to pay a penalty of INR500 for the first unsolicited communication, and INR1,000 for every subsequent communication.

-By Romit Guha, Dow Jones Newswires; +91-9900181471; romit.guha@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

Posted to the site on 18th March 2008