The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) issued a
notification in December 2010 that put forth new guidelines in order to protect
India’s 700million mobile phone users from mobile spam, which has become a
large problem.
Under the new guidelines, TRAI will release an updated
NCPR (National Consumer Preference Registry) register twice a week.
Telemarketing companies must update their databases equally as often and make
sure all outbound messages and calls are vetted against this database.
Mobile operators have been tasked with doing a second
level check to absolutely ensure that the consumer is not spammed. The size of
the mobile population and hence the registry makes such filtering an extremely
arduous task. India’s largest group messaging company announces their solution
to this problem: the SMS GupShup Scrubber.
The Scrubber is an innovative, fast and efficient
application that SMS GupShup is
making available to all companies in India. Those affected by the TRAI
guidelines include carriers, telemarketers, outbound call centers and SMS
message aggregators, who must fully comply with the guidelines in order to
smoothly run any voice or data campaigns, or promotional activities.
The Scrubber enables both large and small telecom
companies to scrub” mobile and landline numbers and classify them as per the
updated guidelines of the TRAI.
Once mobile users register their preferences in the
TRAI’s NCPR register the telemarketers and operators will filter out all
messages that are not in accordance with the consumer’s preference.
After the new guidelines go into effect, heavy monetary
fines will be imposed on carriers and telemarketers who do not comply. These
steps will go a long way in minimizing spam. All telemarketers have to
register into a separate National Telemarketing Registry, along with payment of
an up-front deposit.
The new cutting-edge scrubbing solution processes,
matches and filters numbers at superfastspeed. The Scrubber has been
successfully tested for quality and performance on SMS GupShup’s monthly volume
of over 3 billion messages per month, as well as at multiple network operator
locations.
The SMS GupShup Scrubber is 100 percent TRAI compliant, and
the Scrubber will download data twice a week directly from TRAI. Based on the
date of a user’s database submission, the scrubbed data will be the most recent
as per TRAI records. The Scrubber eliminates a significant risk factor for most
companies in the mobile ecosystem.
The Scrubber will allow people to harness the power of
the mobile medium responsibly. Marketers will now be able to target mobile
users more effectively, and communicate with only those who are interested in
receiving their communications providing an end to mobile spam. The launch of
the Scrubber will undoubtedly provide great relief for brands and advertisers
who have struggled with the fine line between mobile marketing and spam in the
past, and have massive databases to clean,” said Viswanath Ramachandran, chief
technology officer, SMS GupShup
The scrubbing service can be integrated with voice, data
and SMS messaging systems. SMS GupShup has an API ready for people wishing to
integrate the solution into their automated systems.
By Telecomlead.com Team
editor@telecomlead.com
