Telecommunication Challenges in India

Digital revolution has changed the communication landscape in India and led to many developments that are creating new opportunities for all sections of the society. It includes the common people from the middle class and the corporate sector. The introduction of the mobile telephony has led to a great connectivity boom making it easy to do business within a fraction of second giving confidence to players from all sectors to be at par with the global players. But this new digital revolution has come at a cost. We have been witnessing fake calls to the consumers from the phone numbers having the Indian code. Cyber criminals have been indulging in the crimes by making international spoofed calls displaying the Indian mobile numbers (+91).What is surprising is that these calls by the cyber criminals appear to be originating from India. But these calls are being made from abroad by manipulating the call line identity (CLI) which is also known as the phone number. It must be noted that for quite a long time Indian citizens have been receiving spoofed calls where people making these calls impersonate as the police officials of high ranks, bank managers and other officials to cause a sense of fear and urgency among the mobile users. These callers reveal the identity of the mobile consumers and have access to their bank accounts and the information about their family members. This indeed infuses a sense of fear. And in desperation the people end up giving the money demands by these fraudsters. This has emerged as a great national security threat for the Indian citizens. There is also an apprehension that these fraudsters have access to the Aadhar details of the mobile users landing them in great insecurity. Meanwhile , the Union Minister of Communications, Jyotiraditya Scindia while launching the International Incoming Spoofed Calls Prevention System has said that this is the government’s effort for building a safe digital space and protecting citizens from cyber-crime. This will indeed make the Indian telecom subscribers witness a significant reduction in spoofed calls when the system is implemented. In this connection the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India(TRAI) will be implemented from 1st November. These rules will mandate the traceability of transactional and service messages sent by banks, e-commerce platforms and other financial institutions. It also asks the telecom companies to block messages that have any disturbance in the system. Responding to the TRAI rules, the Indian Telecom companies that most of the key players and telemarketers are not yet ready to fall in line and comply with them and as such the delivery of the OTP’s for the various services and other messages may get disrupted from the 1st November. Keeping this emerging situation in view. It needs to be understood that safety of the consumers has to be the priority. To ensure that there needs to be an understanding between the TRAI and the service providers. TRAI needs to settle this stalemate at the earliest. As any disruption will cause a logjam. Most of the financial transactions are being done by using the mobile telephony and depend on the OTP’s for the safe transfer of money to the genuine beneficiaries. Mobile service providers have also to internalise that for the overall security of the nation and its citizens there is an urgent need to implement the TRAI regulations. If these regulations are implemented in time then it will be a game changer for the safe Mobile Telephony in India.