Key Details
The Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference (Third Amendment) Regulations, 2026 add new enforcement, consent and complaint provisions to India’s 2018 rules on unsolicited commercial communications.
Area | What Changes |
|---|---|
AI-based detection | Telecom operators must identify numbers with a high probability of sending spam and share that intelligence across networks |
Coordinated enforcement | Three complaints within ten days can trigger action when the number is also flagged by an AI system |
Automated calls | Undeclared application-to-person calls will be treated as unsolicited commercial communication |
Economic deterrent | Automated calls may attract a termination charge of up to ₹0.05 per minute |
Customer inquiries | Promotional follow-ups based on an inquiry are permitted for only seven days, with the inquiry retained in verifiable form |
Consumer appeals | Complaint decisions can be appealed within 15 days through the DND app, telecom-provider channels or 1909 |
Misused templates | Compromised headers or message templates must be suspended within six hours; responsible telemarketers may face one-year disconnection and blacklisting |
Application-to-person calls are calls initiated by software or an automated platform without direct human dialling, including autodialled, prerecorded and artificial-voice calls.
The Consultation Has Now Become Regulation
TRAI issued the draft Third Amendment Regulations in March 2026 and subsequently received stakeholder comments and held an open-house discussion. TPE’s earlier coverage examined the proposed controls on AI-based detection, automated calls, consent records and call-management applications.
The final amendment moves these measures from consultation into the regulatory framework. It also incorporates a February 2026 direction under which telecom service providers were already using and sharing AI-generated intelligence on suspected spam senders.
Spam Detection Will Combine Complaints with Network Intelligence
The earlier rules generally required at least five unique complaints within ten days before action was initiated against a sender. Under the amendment, action can begin after three unique complaints when the originating number has also been identified as suspected spam by an operator’s AI system.
Where five or more calling numbers associated with the same sender are flagged within ten days, operators can escalate their response through:
customer-identity re-verification;
physical verification;
restrictions on outgoing services; and
disconnection for repeated misuse.
This changes enforcement from a system dependent mainly on consumer complaints to one that combines complaints with calling-pattern analysis across networks.
Automated Commercial Calls Must Be Declared
Entities using automated or prerecorded calling must declare both the activity and the originating numbers to their telecom provider. Calls made without this declaration will be classified as unsolicited commercial communication.
A termination charge of up to ₹0.05 per minute introduces a cost for automated calling. Calls using TRAI-designated commercial number series — such as 140xx, 1600xx and 1601xx — and other authorised calls are exempt.
The designated series are intended to help recipients distinguish regulated promotional, service, transactional and government communications from calls made through ordinary numbers.
Consumers Gain an Appeal, While Apps Face New Duties
Consumers dissatisfied with the resolution of a spam complaint can appeal within 15 days. The appeal may be filed through the same principal channels used for complaints, including the TRAI DND app, telecom-provider apps and portals, or 1909.
Call-management applications cannot automatically label or block calls from officially designated commercial number series. Individual users retain the ability to block such calls on their own devices.
Apps that allow users to report calls as spam or junk must transmit those reports to the telecom operators’ distributed-ledger platform. This is intended to bring reports made through third-party apps into the formal enforcement system rather than leaving them within private databases.
Policy Relevance
The amendment redistributes responsibility across the commercial-communications chain. Telecom operators must act on shared intelligence, businesses must preserve verifiable consent and inquiry records, telemarketers face consequences for misuse, and call-management apps must feed complaints into the regulated system.
Its effectiveness will depend on whether AI-based detection produces faster action without incorrectly restricting legitimate communications. TRAI will therefore need evidence on complaint-resolution times, repeat violations, appeals, false-positive rates and enforcement across operators — not merely the number of calls flagged by automated systems.
The recognition of legacy consents also requires scrutiny. Businesses may register older consents only when they were obtained through verifiable means, making the quality of consent records important to preventing outdated or ambiguous permissions from legitimising continued marketing.
Relevant Question for Policy Stakeholders: What performance and error-rate disclosures should TRAI require from telecom operators to show that AI-assisted spam enforcement is reducing unwanted calls without blocking legitimate service and government communications?
Follow the Full Press Release Here: TRAI Strengthens Rules Against Unsolicited Commercial Communications