India’s telecom ministry has said that complaints relating to unsolicited calls have come down significantly, but unsuspecting telecom subscribers continue to receive pesky text messages.
An average of nearly 47,500 complaints per month were received per month between March 2010 and March 2011. This was before the “Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations 2010” went into effect on Sept. 27 this year.
From Sept. 27 to Nov. 30, 9,746 complaints were received, for a monthly average of about 4,500.
Most of the unsolicited commercial communications originate from unregistered telemarketers. The government has taken actions against unsolicited communications, the ministry informed.
As of Nov. 30, more than 3,400 notices were sent to telemarketers who had no authorization to send such communications. Also, 410 telephone numbers of such telemarketers were disconnected by the authorities.
Registered telemarketers were penalized in 18 cases between Sept. 27 and Nov. 30.
