Kindly note that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), on 16th Feb 2023, has issued a Regulatory Direction regarding measures to ‘Curb misuse of Headers and Content Templates’ under Telecom Commercial Communication Customer Preference Regulation, 2018. The copy of the Direction is enclosed for your perusal.
This Direction has a significant impact on the ways you have been managing your commercial communication on the DLT platform and across telecom networks.
So, we urge you to take time and go through these Directions thoroughly and take needful timely actions to continue interacting with your customers seamlessly.
Listed below are the actions, as per these Directions, which are to be taken at your end immediately.
| S.No | Direction regarding measures to curb misuse of Headers and Content Templates | Action required from PEs |
|---|---|---|
| (a) | Ensure re-verification of all Headers registered on DLT platform within thirty days from the date of issue of this direction and blocking of unverified headers; |
Validate all your Headers registered on the DLT platform. Keep those that you want to continue using, and release/surrender those you don’t. Headers not validated by you by 5th March 2023 will be deactivated thereafter. We will shortly enable the option for you to re-verify the headers registered in your Jio TrueConnect DLT platform account. A large number of your headers have been identified to not have a direct linkage with you, and are being used for sending traffic for other entities. We request the same be released/surrendered to prevent any deletion action from our end. |
| (b) |
ensure to develop, within sixty days from issue of the direction, a system to – (i) temporarily deactivate all headers which remain unused in last thirty days; (ii) reactivate headers by PEs through an online process; and (iii) ensure that PE shall classify every header at the time of registration as 'temporary' or 'permanent' header, as the case may be, and that the 'temporary' header shall be deactivated after the time duration for which such 'temporary' header has been registered; |
As per this Direction, the TSPs are required to temporarily deactivate all your headers which have not been used in the last 30 days, and reactivate only after online request from your end. We are further required to introduce a mechanism of temporary (short-term validity) and permanent headers, which we have started working upon. We will be sharing the process shortly. We further urge you to limit your headers to a reasonable number to suit your activities, and surrender the rest. We will shortly engage with you for a capping on the count of these headers. |
| (c) | ensure that each Header is distinct and shall reject, during registration, such Headers which are similar by virtue of combination of small case or large case letters; | Review all your headers to see that there are no duplicate/similar headers by virtue of combination of small case or large case letters. In case of similar Headers, release/surrender the duplicates. The one retained header will still allow you to use it in lower/upper/combination case. All the other duplicate Headers will be deactivated. |
| (d) | ensure re-verification of all content templates within sixty days of issue of this direction and blocking of unverified templates; |
We will shortly enable the option for you to re-verify your content templates registered on the DLT platform. In the mean-time, we urge you to segregate at your end the templates that you want to continue using and those you don’t. Templates not validated by you by 31st March 2023 will be deactivated shortly thereafter. A large number of your templates have been identified to not have a direct linkage with you, and are being used for sending traffic for other entities. We request the same be released/surrendered to prevent any deletion action from our end. |
| (e) | incorporate procedure for quarterly re-verification of Headers and content templates in their respective CoPs; | This re-verification of headers and templates will be made a quarterly activity, and any unverified headers/templates will be deactivated. |
| (f) | limit the number of variable portions in content template of messages to two variables only provided that, for the reasons to be recorded, a third variable may be allowed in case of exigency; and |
The Direction limits the number of variables in content templates to 2, and they should also be non-consecutive. In compliance to this Direction, we urge you to register new templates with permissible number of variables and start migrating your customer communication to those. In case of any exigency, a 3rd variable may be allowed; however, the specific reasons are to be recorded for this third variable. It is to be noted that in no case, more than third variable is allowed in a template. Effective 1st March 2023, we will not be approving any content template requests with more than 2 variables, and these 2 variables also will have to be non-continuous. Existing templates which do not adhere to the 'variable' format as per these Directions will also be deactivated shortly thereafter. |
| (g) | ensure that variables in the content templates are non-continuous and not separated with space, comma and/or any other special characters. |
In view of the above, we again urge you for timely completion of the action points and activities highlighted, so as to enable us implement the TRAI Directions in a timely and effective manner.
Thanks and Regards,
Team SMSGATEWAYHUB