Trai raises SMS cap to 200 a day from Tuesday

Telecom consumers will now be able to send up to 200 SMSes per day from a SIM, as against the earlier limit of just 100 SMSes per day imposed by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). “The authority has received representations from some of the service providers and consumers to increase the limit of 100 SMSes per day per SIM. The authority has considered these representations and decided to increase the limit of 100 SMSes per day per SIM to 200 SMSes per day per SIM,” TRAI said in a statement on Tuesday. To deter unsolicited SMSes by telemarketing companies, TRAI had earlier restricted the number of non-commercial SMSes that can be send from a SIM to 100. There was no restriction on commercial messages sent through telemarketing companies registered with TRAI. The new cap of 200 SMSes per sim per day will be effective from Tuesday. [caption id=“attachment_120846” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Reuters”]  [/caption] After much delay, TRAI in September this year came out with recommendations to stop pesky calls and text messages, directing that no operators will permit the transmission of more than 100 SMSes per day per SIM. In a bid to clamp down pesky SMSes, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had said that it will impose a termination charge of 5 paise per SMS on operators from whose networks commercial messages originate. Termination charges are paid by an operator from whose network calls or SMS originate to the one on whose network these communications end. These charges impact tariffs. “The promotional SMS charge shall be Re 0.05 (five paisa only). The Originating Access provider may collect the promotional SMS charge from the registered telemarketer,” TRAI said in a notification. At present, some operators charge a termination fee of up to 15 paise per SMS. The current directive would make it mandatory for all operators to charge the termination levy for commercial SMSes. PTI