The number of phone subscribers has also been growing fast, and was at 886 million at the end of June, of which mobile subscribers were 852 million, according to TRAI.

To force telemarketers to register, TRAI is enforcing a ceiling of 100 SMS messages per day to regular subscribers. The reasoning is that telemarketers typically need to send a lot more than 100 SMS messages a day from each of their phone connections, and hence will be constrained to register as telemarketers.

Customers can now register to be fully blocked from receiving telemarketing calls and SMS, or be partially blocked and receive promotional SMS only in their specific areas of interest, according to the new rules.

The IDG News Service