Unsolicited Commercial
Communication

Stakeholders of the ecosystem

The stakeholders in the ecosystem includes:
• ● Telecom Service Providers
• ● Sender or Principal Entities (Also include Govt. Entities)
• ● Telemarketers/Aggregator
• ● Customer or Recipient of voice calls or SMS

Regulatory requirements to be fulfilled by Principal Entities

All the Principal Entities (Sender or Businesses, Private as well Government bodies) who are using the telecom resources to send bulk messages to their customer, have to fulfill the regulatory requirements under TCCCPR, 2018.

As per the provisions of the regulation and Code(s) of Practices published by the Access Providers, following activities are required to be completed by any sender (OTP, Transactional messages, Service messages or commercial messages) for sending bulk communication:

• (a) Registration as Principal Entity (PE)
• (b) Assignment of header
• (c) Registration of Content Template
• (d) Transmission of PE ID, header, Content ID while offering for delivery of messages to TSPs
• (e) Registration of consent template (if any)
• (f) Acquisition of consumer consent (if any)

Guidance for sending Commercial Communication

If you are interested in sending commercial communication (CC), then you fulfill the regulatory requirements before sending CC:

1) Become a registered sender

• Register yourself as
  Principal Entitybusiness/legal/govt. Entities who want to send Commercial Communication
  to send commercial communications to your customers.
• Procedure for Principal entity Registration - Learn how to register as sender/Principal entity on TSPs' website

2) Register Header

• Every commercial communication is carried through registered
  headersAlphanumeric string of Max. 11 characters
  Ex: "VD-KOTAKB" "JD-IPAYTM"
  only.
• Procedure for Header Registration - Learn more about the header registration process.

3) Register Content Template

• For sending any communication through registered headers, Principal entities are required to register their
  content template structure of the message content which has fixed and variable part
  e which may have both fixed and variable parts as per the code of practice.
• Register your content template through TSPs website
• Procedure for Content Template Registration - Learn more about the Content template registration process.

4) Register your customer's consents

• Before sending commercial communication to your customers, you must acquire consent of customers through a registered
  consent template. structure of template for acquiring consent
• Procedure for Consent Registration - Learn more about the Consent template registration process.

All the above steps are necessary to become a registered sender. Failing to follow any steps will not allow you to send CC.

Code of Practice - Entities

Code of practice for Entity (COP-Entity) to be developed by TSPs with reference to Schedule -I of TCCCPR, 2018.

Every TSP is required to comply with the submitted COPs, provided that any provision in Code(s) of Practice shall not have effect to the extent of being inconsistent with the regulations.

Links of TSPs' websites for COP-Entity

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

• What is Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT)?

  Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT) means a set of technological solutions that enables a single, sequenced, standardized and cryptographically-secured record of activities to be safely distributed to, and acted upon, by a network of varied participants and their database can be spread across multiple sites or institutions; records are stored one after the other in a continuous ledger and can only be added when the participants reach a consensus.

• What is a header?

  Header means an alphanumeric string of maximum eleven characters or numbers assigned to an individual, business or legal entity under these regulations to send commercial communications.

• Whether header registration is mandatory for making communication of commercial nature?

  Yes, as per the new regulatory framework, any commercial communication may only take place using registered header(s) assigned to the sender(s) for the purpose of commercial communication.

• What are Promotional messages or promotional voice calls?

  Promotional messages or promotional voice call means commercial communication message or voice call for which the sender has not taken any explicit consent from the intended Recipient to send such messages.

• What is a Service message or Service Call?

  Service message or Service Call means a message sent to a recipient or voice call made to recipient either with his consent or using a template registered for the purpose, the primary purpose of which is

  ● to facilitate, complete, or confirm a commercial transaction that the recipient has previously consented to enter into with the sender; or

  ● to provide warranty information, product recall information, safety or security information with respect to a commercial product or service used or purchased by the recipient