The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on March 15 updated regulations to disallow telecom subscribers to port out of their current network provider if they have “swapped” their SIM card, after loss or damage of a previous card, within the past seven days. The regulations prohibit telecom operators to issue a “unique porting code” (UPC) which is the first step of changing providers using mobile number portability.
This amendment would “result in preventing [the] porting of mobile connections soon after SIM swapping/ replacement, by fraudsters in the name of new subscribers,” the TRAI said in an explanatory memorandum.
The move is part of several anti-spam measures the TRAI has taken, even as fraudulent and spam calls surge as a concern. Previous steps include creating a do-not-disturb registry for subscribers to opt out of spam, releasing a now-defunct app to enforce that registry by allowing users to more conveniently file complaints against errant telemarketers, and requiring all transactional SMS messages by businesses to be as per a format registered with telecom operators, barring which they get filtered out.
