Kolkata: The telecom regulator has sought views from stakeholders on whether caller identity display on mobile phones must be made available to all consumers as a mandatory supplementary service to stop spam and scam calls.
It has sought feedback from industry on whether existing telecom networks already support the provision of the proposed calling name presentation (CNAP) service. It also wants clarity on whether mobile phones and landline telephone sets in use in India are already enabled with the CNAP feature, and if not, what needs to be done to activate it.
In its discussions paper, issued on Tuesday, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) said that the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) in July 2022 had suggested the introduction of CNAP facility in telecommunication networks to empower subscribers to take informed decisions while receiving an incoming call and reduce harassment from unknown/spam callers.
“…to facilitate CNAP feature to all telephone subscribers (smartphone and feature phone owners) in India, telecom network readiness and feasibility needed to be explored so that CNAP can be implemented in multi-technology networks across telecom service providers,” the DoT had told Trai in a background note on the subject.
Trai has also sought views on whether the name, identity information provided by consumers in the customer acquisition forms (CAFs) should be used for the purpose of CNAP database and set-up.
Deadlines for comments and counter-comments are December 27, 2022, and January 10, 2023, respectively.
Telecom minister Ashwini Vaishnaw had recently said that a person receiving a call should know who is making it. And that includes all kinds of calls, be it a normal voice call, WhatsApp call, Facetime or any other OTT call. Subsequently, Trai chairman PD Vaghela had said at India Mobile Congress 2022 that the regulator would unveil a discussion paper on compulsory caller ID on phones.
Trai Tuesday has also outlined multiple potential models to implement the CNAP service and sought suggestions on what would be the most effective one. For instance, one of the suggested models is a telco maintaining a CNAP database of its customers, and subsequently the name information is shared by the telco, on whose network a call is originating, with the destination telco on whose network the call is terminating.
Another implementation model is getting a third-party to operate a centralized CNAP database with an update mechanism from each telco in respect to their subscribers. In this model, “the terminating telco performs the (caller identity) lookup from the centralized CNAP database at the time of receiving a call.
“…in the US, a terminating service provider performs a lookup on the database maintained by the originating service provider or a trusted third-party, using the calling party’s telephone number to obtain the name information for presenting it to the called party,” the Trai notes in his discussion paper.
The regulator has also sought suggestions on steps required to ensure delivery of CNAP service to a called-party without a considerable rise in the call set-up time.
Trai has also sought feedback on whether outgoing calls must be permitted from national toll-free numbers, and if so, whether the CNAP service should also be activated for such numbers.
Likewise, it has invited views on whether the CNAP service should be implemented for 140-level numbers allocated to registered telemarketers, and on whether there is a need to amend any telecommunication service licenses/authorizations to pave the way for the introduction of the service.
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