Govt entities, banks to call, message from new 160 series: DoT
The DoT, in its May 30 press release, noted that consumers often do not respond to calls from the 140 series as it is extensively used for marketing
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has introduced a numbering series beginning with 160 to distinguish between service calls (such as those to give one-time passwords through calls) and marketing calls. Marketing or promotional calls will continue from the 140 series allocated to telemarketers, the DoT said in a press release.
The industry requested the DoT to create this distinction, a person aware of the matter said. The DoT, in its May 30 press release, noted that consumers often do not respond to calls from the 140 series as it is extensively used for marketing. As a result, many important service/transactional calls are missed.
“This has resulted in [a] wide use of regular 10-digit numbers by genuine entities for making service/transactional calls. This also gave opportunity to fraudsters to deceive consumers using 10-digit numbers,” the DoT said.
Service and transactional calls from government entities and regulators will be made from 10-digit numbers beginning with 1600. The calls from regulated financial entities will be made from 10-digit numbers starting with 1601, DoT’s office memorandum dated May 28 said. “If any other type of entity requires assignment of number resources under this series than [sic] the same may be requested separately by TRAI.”
In the 10-digit number, 1600/1 will be followed by two digits that denote the licensing service area (such as 11 for Delhi, 22 for Mumbai, 33 for Kolkata, 44 for Tamil Nadu, etc). The third digit will denote the telecom service provider or TSP (such as 2 for BSNL/MTNL, 3 for Jio, 4 for Airtel, 5 for Vodafone Idea, etc).
The TSP will be responsible for ensuring verification of every entity before assigning a number from the 160 series. “The TSP shall obtain an undertaking from the seeking entity that it will use the number assigned from 160 series exclusively for service and transactional voice calls as per TCCCPR, 2018 notified under TRAI Act-1997 only,” the memo said.
Telecom Commercial Communication Customer Preference Regulation defines the rules for what constitutes spam calls (unsolicited commercial communication) and how entities can seek the consent of users before communicating with them.
“Service message” or “service call” means any call or message either sent to a recipient with their consent or using a template registered for a particular purpose (such as confirming a transaction, giving warranty information, information about the change in subscription status, etc).
A “transactional voice call” is a non-promotional voice call meant to alert customers or account holders about time-critical information. “Promotional voice calls” or “promotional messages” are commercial calls/messages for which the sender does not take explicit consent from the recipient.
