In a strong move to curb the menace of spam and fraudulent activities of telecom services, the Ministry of Communications here on Sunday said that more than 1 crore mobile connections have been cut off.
The big cleanup was facilitated through the Sanchar Saathi platform to streamline the quality and security-related concerns of the telecom services in the country.
To weed out fraudulent and spam connections, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has been forcing strict regulation into operation.
Over 3.5 lakh mobile numbers with alleged links to illegal activities have been disconnected in the last two weeks alone. Furthermore, 50 entities misusing bulk connections to send unsolicited messages and robocalls have been blacklisted.
Further, to create a spam-free environment in the telecom space in India, about 3.5 lakh unverified or unused SMS headers and 12 lakh content templates were blocked. These steps constitute TRAI's greater objective of ensuring high-value telecom services to users without any interference due to spam or fraudulent calls.
In the larger war against telecom fraud, DoT has also utilized the Sanchar Saathi platform aimed at citizen-centric reporting on suspicious calls and messages. As a result, more than one crore fraudulent mobile connections have been identified and disconnected using the platform since its inauguration.
Moreover, it has gone as far as fighting cybercrime and financial fraud by blocking 2.27 lakh mobile handsets used in criminal activities. The achievements by Sanchar Sahayak were considered a big victory in India's fight against digital fraud as it would ensure a safe telecom environment for the citizens.
In addition, to clamping down on fraudulent connections, TRAI has also announced new benchmarks for better network performance and quality of service for consumers. The revised regulation titled, The Standards of Quality of Service of Access (Wirelines and Wireless) and Broadband Service Regulations, 2024, will come into effect from October 1, 2024.
The telecom operators, under the new regulations, will have to comply with more stringent norms regarding network availability, call drop rates, and packet drop rates. From April 1, 2025, the mobile service performance monitoring will be done on a month-to-month basis instead of the existing quarterly review. This shows the commitment of TRAI toward continuous improvement in services related to telecom.
It has also issued consultation papers on future steps that would be necessary for effectively controlling spam. These would include provisions for the immediate suspension of unregistered telemarketers once complaints exceed a threshold limit, as well as proactive identification of suspected spammers. This is all done to build up better security in the telecom industry.
These all-around efforts by the Indian government constitute a full-fledged round of improvements in telecom along with TRAI and the DoT for enhanced user security and smoothened network performance. This sets benchmarks for the rest of the world by constituting a precedent to prevent fraud in mobile networks and spam control.