Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has introduced a system and technology to control the unsolicited and pesky commercial SMS communication and the technology introduced was DLT (Distributed Ledger Technology). Using this technology operators have developed a DLT portal where every SMS sender entity needs to do registration, which is called DLT registration. Using the portal every SMS sender entity has to register their entity, header and contents in the DLT portal of any of the operators DLT platform. This technology has been introduced in 2018 and applied in 2020 in full flash. Now this technology has almost completed 2 years, and there are a number of drawbacks found. So of it are mentioned below:
Major Drawbacks of DLT Platform:
1. No proper DLT support system given by the operators.
2. No proper document formats to be uploaded, some operators accept the same but some rejects.
3. Entity approval time takes longer, sometimes 3 to 7 days even after proper documentation.
4. Template registration approval takes a long time, approx. 3 to 4 days.
5. No one can send any critical information through SMS, because of high approval time.
6. Header registration takes 2-3 days.
7. Enterprises have been charged Rs 5900/- every year for DLT registration, even after 2.5p per SMS charges applied.
8. Misusing of DLT credentials of Entity.
9. Still the spam and pesky SMS are sent, even after DLT.
Even after the above drawbacks in the DLT portal, hardly the operators listen to make the process seamless. DLT can be implemented in a better way, but the operators are charging even more from the entity and no such development on its better way has been done by the operators. TRAI should intervene on this and should take feedback from the entity and do the needful changes on DLT. Few suggestion to improve DLT portal are:
Suggestion to be improve the DLT Platform:
1. Every DLT platform should be in direct control of TRAI.
2. Similar and authentic documents should be applied on all operator’s DLT portals.
3. Approval timing of Entity should be lesser if find proper documents.
4. Header and Template Registration and Approval/Rejection timing should be instant.
5. Proper support system, either email or phone, should be there for every DLT operator.
6. No charges can be taken by the operator for registration, if they are already charging additional in the SMS as DLT charges.
The whole purpose of the DLT platform will only be solved, when it is to make it better for customers and easy to use. Now in every coming day technologies are growing faster and more developed, DLT operators are also required to do competitive development to make it better so that more customers can add to the platform.
