On the issue of unsolicited and intrusive telemarketing voice calls being made to mobile phone users across the country by telemarketing companies, one should weigh it between intrusiveness and disturbance, vis-à-vis Information-sharing. It is well known that e-mails and text intrusion, though not a happy intrusion, are far more acceptable than telemarketing voice that land up in the middle of nowhere for credit cards, insurance and a host of ‘push sales’. It is these calls that need to be strongly condemned. Telecom operators should not allow such intrusion into the lives of mobile phone users.

“It is rather unfortunate that the debate is not aligned to understanding difference between disturbance and nuisance of a telemarketers’ voice calls, vis-à-vis spam e-mail or spam SMS. Many telecom operators are permitting unsolicited calls by telemarketers and by their very nature, these calls are intrusive and a violation of the personal space of subscribers,” Mr AG Rao, TTL’s Chief Technology Officer and Enterprise Business Head, said.

While it is acknowledged that communication and selling media should not be blocked for usage just because some of the glitterati do not find time to put their numbers into the NDND (National Do Not Disturb) registry, the system is not able to block by design such intrusion into their privacy. However, despite this, a few instances of SPAM could still come in. However, as long as it’s not a voice call, but an e-mail or SMS, the degree of disturbance is far lower.

It is crucial, thus, for system to provide for 10 times more severe penalty for intrusive voice calls than SMS spam messages and all operators should support this.

“Telemarketing has been there since the very inception of the industry—it is unsolicited SPAM which is the scourge, and we are totally committed to help restrict SPAM, and even propose that commercial penalties be levied on operators for unsolicited SPAM,” Mr Rao added. “Indian telecom operators have received acclaim for reworking the costs of telecom to reach out to the masses and be a driver for economic growth. A farmer in a village or a fisherman is today happy to receive an SMS on crop prices, weather information, etc. any other form of public disbursement of information would have cost 100 times more.”