In a major relief for business houses, telecom sector regulator TRAI today exempted messages

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generated by and sent to automated technical systems from the 200 SMS per SIM cap imposed to curb pesky telemarketers.

“TRAI has received representations from the stakeholders that in view of the limit of 200 SMSes per day per SIM, they are not able to send machine-to-machine and person-to-machine SMSes, which are sent by them to initiate processes or applications for their operational requirements,” the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Advisor, Mr Robert J. Ravi, said in a statement today.

He further said the regulator has received representations from various companies for clarifications regarding the delivery of information through SMSes related to services or maintenance provided by them to their customers.

“TRAI has duly considered such representations and has excluded all machine-to-machine and person-to-machine messages from the limit of 200 SMSes per day per SIM,” Mr Ravi said.

These kinds of services include providing details of drivers or taxis on booking of radio taxis, the tentative date of delivery of goods, tentative date of attending to complaints, the contact details of person attending to the complaint, etc, the statement said.

In this regard, the regulator has already issued a directive in which it has categorised information sent by a registered company to its employees or agents or its customers pertaining to services or goods to be delivered to such customer as transactional messages.

“So a registered company may send information pertaining to services or goods to be delivered to the customer under the transactional message category,” Mr Ravi said.

Accordingly, TRAI issued directions to all telecom service providers to “exclude from the limit of 200 SMSes per day per SIM all machine-to-machine and person-to-machine messages, where machine is not a mobile handset and no manual intervention is required at the receiving end”.