Srinivas Padma: Personal Musings on Life, Growth, and Connections

Are you being haunted by telemarketers while you are busy driving or attending an important conference? Your woes will soon end, thanks to new guidelines of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) which restrict telemarketers from intruding into your private life. TRAI has found that telemarketing is one of the most cost efficient tools for marketing products. Private banks like ICICI are ahead of others in using telemarketing to offer new schemes to customers. To curb unwanted telemarketing calls, TRAI has asked National Informatics Centre (NIC) to create a national "do not call" registry (NDNCregistry) which would contain telephone numbers of subscribers who do not want to receive unsolicited commercial communications. The telecom service providers will have to set up call centres within 15 days after the establishment of the NDNC registry by NIC. However, the NIC and service providers are yet to fall in line though the deadline is September 5, 2007 for settin...

No more rental fees ¦ Incoming SMS free ¦ Call rates slashed Some good news for mobile phone users : they will now pay much less in roaming charges, with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India ordering a steep cut in the tariffs by up to 56 per cent on Wednesday, and the rental for roaming being removed. At present, any cellphone subscriber who travels out side the home network is charged a rental of Rs 50 for national roaming services. For a GSM subscriber, an outgoing call could cost up to Rs 3.99 per minute while a CDMA user is charged anywhere between Re 1 to Rs 3.99, depending on the distance. The new roaming charges, applicable to all prepaid and postpaid users of any service provider, will be Rs 1.40 for local calls, Rs 2.40 for STD calls and Rs 1.75 for incoming calls, according to a statement issued by the telecom regulator. These changes will take effect from February 15. All incoming SMS would be free while roaming, while charges for outgoing SMS are still under considera...

UMTS Forum, an international body that promotes uptake of UMTS technology for the roll out of 3G mobile telephony is planning to write a letter to telecom department asking it to reject the recommendations of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India or Trai’s recommendations on the auction of 3G spectrum. Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) chairman Jean-Pierre Bienaime said that the Indian government should avoid the auction of the 3G spectrum and the high base price recommended by Trai. “Government should prevent the initial investors from being overburdened and instead of auction government should follow the path of entry price with beauty contest,” Mr Bienaime told this newspaper. Mr Bienaime said that the bad example of auction of 3G spectrum followed in the UK, Germany, Italy, Poland and the Netherlands resulted in high price of 3G spectrum and this jeopardised the profitability of 3G telephony. “Instead government should follow the example of France where the midd...