TRAI’s Plan To Make Name Display Mandatory For Incoming Calls Hits Tech Obstacles

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) plan for compulsory name display on incoming calls is reportedly facing delay due to tech-related hurdles.

As per ET’s report, the telecom companies were asked by the regulator to ensure a calling name presentation (CNAP) service on mobile phones, a move aimed at combating spam and scam calls, in February.

However, senior executives of mobile phone operators and handset companies have confirmed that this initiative proposed would be nearly unachievable to make it nationwide, given a huge population still using 2G/3G networks, based on the report. Also, it would take a large sum of expenditure to bring in network upgrades.

The report also quoted the executives saying that the service will have the limitation of not being offered to 270-300 Mn 2G users.

In fact, only smartphones that have come into the market after 2021 are likely to support the CNAP feature, the executives were quoted as saying in the report.

Earlier this year, TRAI was considering a directive to display coverage maps on websites for consumers to know 5G and 4G availability to address the issue of smartphone users seeing 4G indicators on their devices despite having them updated.

In a bid to clamp down on unsolicited marketing messages and pesky calls, TRAI issued directives in November 2023, to commercial entities to seek user content before sending such messages. 

“Trials are on, but the regulator has been apprised that CNAP will only work on IP-based networks whereas the older circuit switched (CS) mobile networks are not evolved enough to support it. So in no way will this help entirely curb spam calls or fraud, but will instead be a drain on telco resources as significant costs would need to be incurred towards servers/separate storage of customer data specifically for CNAP,” the report quoted an executive as saying.

This comes at a time, where the TRAI floated a consultation paper on “Revision of National Numbering,” earlier this year. The paper quickly ran into controversies as media reports said that the telecom body had sought feedback on whether charges could be levied on mobile numbers (colloquially referred to as telecom identifiers (TI)). 

Meanwhile, TRAI was reportedly planning to hold open house discussions to formulate a regulatory framework to oversee over-the-top (OTT) communication services that are not covered under the ambit of the Telecom Act, 2023, earlier in May.

Updated at 02.43 PM