Trai Cracks Down On Spam Calls: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has taken strict action to provide relief to mobile customers who have been harassed by unknown spam calls and frequent promotional messages across the country. Strict action has been taken against over 1.24 lakh telecom connections and resources for violating the Unsolicited Commercial Communication (UCC) norms during the second quarter of FY 2026-27 i.e. July to September, 2026. In addition, 374 entities that flout the rules have been blacklisted for 1 year, so they cannot acquire any new telecom resources during this period.
According to an official report released by TRAI, the outgoing services of 110,325 telecom connections who violated the spam rules for the first time were suspended for 15 days. While 13,777 connections violating the rules were permanently disconnected for 1 year despite repeated warnings. Along with this, 3,725 SMS headers have also been blocked, thereby greatly curbing illegal promotional messages.
15.29 lakh spam complaints received in 3 months
The report said that in the 3-month period from July to September, 2026, TRAI received a total of 15.29 lakh complaints regarding unwanted commercial calls and messages, out of which 7.23 lakh complaints were considered actionable. Significantly, 714.01 billion calls and 702.28 billion SMS were sent from the country's telecom networks during this period, corresponding to around 2.14 spam complaints for every 1 million outgoing calls.
AI technology becomes a weapon against spam
Telecom companies are now using sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI) based systems to combat spammers. According to TRAI, AI systems successfully identified 19.9 billion suspicious calls and messages in the second quarter, including 18.28 billion calls and 1.62 billion SMS. Besides, more than 45.9 million warning notices were issued to suspicious entities and e-KYC verification of 34,025 suspicious senders was done, out of which 9,977 numbers were disconnected due to KYC failure.
92.9% complaints registered on TRAI DND app
'TRAI DND' app has become the most popular among consumers to lodge complaints against spam. Out of the total complaints, 14.21 lakh i.e. 92.9% complaints were received through this app itself, and the app has been downloaded 42.36 lakh times as of September 30, 2026. To create awareness among consumers, TRAI conducted 322 awareness programs, with 31,000 people participating, along with campaigns on radio, TV, newspapers and social media, and sent more than 3 billion awareness SMS to consumers.