The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India and the Department of Telecommunications(DOT)  have hiked the SMS termination charges to 2 paise per SMS for normal SMS and 5 paise per SMS on each transactional SMS on operators from whom the SMS originates. TRAI also notes that transactional SMS origination from government organizations have been excluded from these new regulations and that these new charges will be applicable from June 1, 2013.

Currently, only promotional SMS are charged termination cost of 5 paise per SMS. After the new regulations are implemented, termination charges will be applicable to transactional, normal and promotional SMS. TRAI hopes that these hiked termination charges will help to curb the pesky SMS spam, which continue to be a major problem even after the imposition of the SMS Spam Guidelines.

Why TSPs want termination charge on SMS?
According to the TRAI statement, telecom service providers (TSP) had noted that smaller operators are selling bulk SMS to telemarketers at cheap rates and that the revenues earned by them are primarily based on the large number of transactional and promotional SMS to subscribers of other networks without having to pay to terminating TSPs. Following the new regulations, operators will be able to earn from smaller operators for normal, promotional and transactional SMS providing a balance.

These regulations are designed to put an end to unsolicited commercial communications (UCC) to subscribers of National Do Not Call (NDNC) register, now enhanced and renamed as National Customer Preference Register (NCPR). Although the regulation is aimed to significantly curb UCC, it brings a positive change to the industry by allowing full access to the NCPR/DND database to registered telemarketers and easy registration/ deregistration process etc. Having said that, I would like to bring your attention to a few things which will change the way we have been doing business until now. Bulk Messaging has been divided into two categories, namely Transactional and Promotional. Click here[link to transactional sms]