TRAI cracks down on spam, bars 1.84 lakh telecom resources in April-June

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) barred or disconnected nearly 1.84 lakh telecom resources and blacklisted 263 senders during the April-June quarter as it stepped up action against unsolicited commercial communications (UCC), according to its quarterly enforcement report released Tuesday.

The regulator said telecom networks handled 730.82 billion outgoing calls and 691.09 billion SMSs during the first quarter of 2026-27. Against this, it received 1.085 million complaints related to spam communications, of which 0.553 million were found actionable.

As part of enforcement measures, 1,37,053 telecom resources were barred from originating telecom services for 15 days for a first violation, while 46,786 resources were disconnected for one year for repeated violations. TRAI also blacklisted 263 senders for a year and blocked 2,873 SMS headers used for commercial messaging.

The regulator said the complaints worked out to around 1.5 complaints for every one million calls originated during the quarter.

The TRAI DND App continued to be the primary platform for consumers to report spam. Of the 1.085 million complaints received during the quarter, 0.966 million, or 89 per cent, were filed through the app. As of June 30, the application had been downloaded 3.316 million times.

The report also showed that 224 million subscribers had registered their Do Not Disturb (DND) preferences, representing around 16 per cent of the country’s 1.348 billion mobile subscribers. More than 1.12 billion subscribers have not registered any preference and therefore remain open to receiving promotional communications from registered telemarketers.

TRAI said the DND framework enabled the blocking of about 1.48 billion promotional calls and 7.30 billion promotional SMSs during the quarter after they were screened against subscribers’ registered preferences.

During the period, registered telemarketers originated 13.16 billion promotional calls using the dedicated 140 series and sent 248.06 billion commercial SMSs. The regulator also recorded 1.15 billion calls made through the 1600 series, which is designated for banking, financial services, insurance and government-to-citizen communications.

The regulator also highlighted the growing use of artificial intelligence to identify suspected spam originating from ordinary 10-digit mobile numbers that fall outside the regulated telemarketing framework.

According to the report, AI-based systems flagged 22.99 billion incoming calls and 1.44 billion incoming SMSs as suspected spam during the quarter. From June 23 onwards, telecom operators also issued around 243,000 warning notifications to entities identified as probable spam senders, cautioning them against further violations.