TRAI (Telecom regulatory authority of India) has lifted the cap on maximum SMSes for service related messages that generate from machines or are sent from users to machines.
So companies like telecom service providers, bankers, or other such institutions can now send more than 200 SMSes per day if that message is being sent from a machine (messages that come from short code are usually sent from machines).
This move will enable service providers to keep their customers informed through SMS and will also enable people to send service requests to short codes like 58888 to avail various services without worrying about the SMS limit.
TRAI had last year announced the cap on messages after complaints on spam messages grew louder. However, the regulator relaxed the norm for holidays. It had also called on the industry and groups to suggest on the same.
TRAI has now clarified that services like providing details of driver or taxi on booking of Radio Taxi, tentative date of delivery of goods, tentative date of attending complaint, contact details of person attending the complaint etc, will be considered as transactional massage and will be exempted from this limit.
In a statement A Robert J Ravi, advisor, TRAI said, “TRAI has received representations from the stakeholders that in view of the limit of 200 SMS per day per SIM. They are not able to send machine to machine and person to machine SMSs which are sent by them to initiate process or application for their operational requirements. TRAI has duly considered such representations and has excluded all machine to machine and person to machine messages from the limit of 200 SMS per day per SIM”.