The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Tuesday announced it has temporarily suspended the implementation of the new anti-spam regulations for commercial texts which caused widespread SMS service disruptions on March 8.
The Telecom Communications Customer Preference Regulations (TCCCPR) were implemented by telecom companies to minimize SMS spam which resulted in delays in the transmission of OTP messages, which impacted banking transactions, online ticket bookings, Aadhaar authentication, and other OTP-based services.
The new process under a system called Distributed Ledger Technology or DLT was the reason for OTP services getting affected. The OTP APIs that caused the problem will soon resume regular operation, and the suspension will only last until the problem is resolved, reports said.
The new technology was expected to reduce spam SMSs by requiring each SMS to be checked against a registered template. This caused an issue with OTP services, causing many users to be unable to log in to services that need OTP activation.
