NDNC postponed, SMS services halted

Trai has once more extended the date for implementation of 'National Do Not Call Registry' till March 21st due to the non-finalization on the number series for fixed phones. However, mobile subscribers are still up in arms at a sudden discontinuation of their vital SMS services since last weekend. For instance, according to a certain Sri Ram school circular, parents were informed that if their numbers were on the NDNC list, they would stop receiving school updates. Other customers complained that SMSes enlisting their banking transactions had been discontinued. This, despite the fact that educational institutions and financial institutions have been exempted from NDNC.

Just Dial, India's leading local search engine began sending out mass SMSes out to all its subscribers, stating that they had been automatically de-registered from all SMS service portals, effective immediately. Other companies providing these services soon followed suit, stating that they would refrain from sending out any SMSes, unless a customer logged into their website, registering their number for the same. However, de-registering from NDNC is also not a viable option, as it opens a customer's number to a floodgate of spam calls and SMSes.

According to Vinita Hassija, partner in export company, Krishna Impex, “I received the SMS from Just Dial, but decided to ignore it, because I do not have time to go to each individual website and re-register to receive SMSes. However, this is very inconvenient, even from my business point of view.” Other subscribers claimed that when they tried to re-register on websites of their choice, this facility failed, or showed an error message. Thus, although the NDNC website provides customers with the option to select companies from their call and SMS receiving list, it seems that all utility SMSes have been blocked. Needless to say, this defeats the very purpose of location-based advertising and VAS SMS services, that are considered to be the telcos' and telemarketers' claim to fame, in terms of high subscriber ARPUs and profits, respectively.

According to A R Vishwanath, chairman & CEO, IMImobile, “Another aspect of the NDNC, is that the website has to be monitored 24/7, which is probably why customers are now facing problems in re-registering for certain services. Needless to say, NDNC will also make a subscriber's number available to more number of companies in the process of de-registration.”

Telcos when contacted seemed to shrug off responsibility for this issue, stating that they were merely facilitators, and this was a problem to be sorted out by the end-use telemarketer.

Remarked Mukund Khatri, chief manager — IT, Bank of Baroda, “Do Not Call Registry has now been replaced with Do Call Registry. While financial services of banks have been excluded from NDNC, in order to avail of a bank's other marketing services, customers will have to go to the website and opt-in to receive those SMSes. Although this will cause a loss in revenue for us, due to a lesser number of customers signing up for these services, I believe it provides due freedom to the end customer to choose their services.”

Suggestions from industry sources on how to tackle this issue suggest that spam filters should be incorporated in the mobile to allow customers to unsubscribe from certain services. Another suggestion is to start permission-based marketing, following the European example of seeking a customer's permission to opt-in for certain services, by logging in their number on to the website in question. An opt-in or subscription system, wherein a particular establishment can override the NDNC, is yet another option.

As Trai was unavailable for comment, it is yet to be seen how this situation will be handled. However, a one-time solution that will suit operators, telemarketers and customers will be preferred.

berylm@cybermedia.co.in