Alright, SMS spam has become a case of concern and TRAI’s attempt to control the same has been a massive failure.
As per estimates, close to 150 million marketing messages are sent every day and assuming cost of Rs. 3 paisa/sms, the SMS spam brings around Rs. 200 crore revenues to the operators.
Bharti Airtel has now decided to exit the bulk sms business, citing other priorities as the core reason.
For us, the bulk SMS business case doesn’t stack up against our priority for the customer.
..the consumer must turn activist and raise his voice against this menace. While the number of phone calls have reduced since the Trai issued its regulation against unsolicited commercial communication (UCC), the volume of SMSs has gone up – ToI
The company that leads the sms bulk business is Tata Telservices (60-70% share), though the falling rates (once upon a time, SMS cost used to be 90 paisa or so; and has now come down to 3 paisa/sms) has made the business less attractive for most of the players.
In fact, Airtel earlier proposed to impose a termination charge (of 5 to 10 paisa) on the bulk sms, in order to control the spammers market. And now that Airtel has decided to exit from bulk sms business, will others (Mr. Tata?) give this a serious thought?
Well, a bit of regulation on the usage will help, as bulk sms doesn’t necessarily translates into spam. We sincerely hope this step by Airtel brings sanity to the system.
Bravo Airtel!
What’s your take?
Read: How to block SMS Spam Calls
Recommended Analysis : TRAI’s NDNC for SMS – Not at all SME Friendly?
Update: We edited the article to showcase the pun of Tata/Airtel w.r.t sms business.
