The telecom regulator TRAI has begun a public consultation to establish a method to show the identity of the caller on mobile phones in an effort to stop bothersome and fraudulent calls, according to an official statement on Tuesday.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) stated in the consultation paper on "Introduction of Calling Name Presentation (CNAP) in Telecommunication Networks" that while there are currently apps like Truecaller and Bharat Caller ID & Anti-spam that offer calling party name identification and spam identification facilities, the names are based on crowd sources that may not be reliable.
The capability will enable telephone users to make educated decisions while receiving calls, according to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), according to TRAI. This method lessens the harassment of users by unauthorised or spam callers.
Additionally, DoT has asked TRAI to investigate the preparedness of the telecom network and the viability of offering CNAP to all telephone subscribers (owners of smartphones and feature phones)," TRAI added.
The regulator is looking for feedback from the public on the document by December 27 and opposing feedback by January 10, 2023.
The service providers would need access to a database that has the right name identification information of each telephone customer in order to deploy the CNAP service in the telecom networks.
TRAI is looking at several commercial strategies for offering CNAP facilities in the consultation paper.
The Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations, 2018 that were released by TRAI to develop a blockchain-based ecosystem to combat the threat of intrusive calls and texts (Distributed Ledger Technology-DLT). The law requires all telemarketers and commercial promoters to register on the DLT platform and obtain approval from customers to send them various types of promotional communications on the days and times of their choosing.
Through registered telemarketers and TSPs using DLT platforms, approximately 2.5 lakh principal entities, more than 6 lakh headers, and about 55 lakh approved message templates have been registered under the framework. The regulator had previously stated that for registered telemarketers, the framework had significantly reduced customer complaints by as much as 60%.
