Airtel Unites with Rivals Jio, BSNL, and Tata to Battle Spam Calls—TRAI and DoT Back Industry-Wide Anti-Spam Initiative

Airtel has reached out to its competitors, including Reliance Jio, Vodafone Idea, BSNL, and Tata Teleservices, to work together in fighting spam calls and messages. Bharti Airtel’s CEO, Gopal Vittal, wrote a letter to these telecom companies suggesting they share data on corporate connections used for commercial calling. This would help monitor and prevent the misuse of such connections. The Department of Telecom (DoT) and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) have also been encouraging the industry to collaborate on a solution.

In his letter, Vittal proposed that the companies share the names of businesses and active numbers on a monthly basis in a standardized format. Airtel has already offered to take the first step by sharing this data, and Vittal asked the other companies to support this initiative.

Government Action on Spam

The letter was sent to the heads of Reliance Jio, Vodafone Idea, BSNL, and Tata Teleservices, but none of the companies have responded yet. Historically, telecom companies have been hesitant to share such data, as it could have financial implications, especially for their enterprise customers. However, the growing problem of spam and phishing has made it necessary for the companies to work together, experts say.

Spam calls and messages are a significant issue in India, with about 1.5-1.7 billion commercial messages sent each day, adding up to roughly 55 billion messages a month. A survey by Local Circles found that six out of 10 consumers receive at least three spam calls a day, with financial services and real estate being the biggest culprits. Similarly, 76% of consumers reported getting three or more spam messages daily, and simply blocking numbers hasn’t helped.

Recent Efforts to Combat Spam

The Indian government has recently ordered telecom companies to disconnect users who send bulk messages or make spam calls. In just the last two weeks, 350,000 numbers have been blocked, and 50 entities have been blacklisted. Additionally, TRAI has asked telecom operators to share information on blacklisted entities with each other, so these companies can’t switch to a different provider to continue their activities.

Airtel has taken this a step further by asking for data on all corporate connections to prevent spam from the source. Vittal emphasized that solving this issue requires all telecom companies to work together and that isolated efforts will not be enough. He also pointed out that enterprise customers often use multiple operators, so collaboration is essential to avoid affecting service quality and continuity.

The letter, which was also sent to TRAI Chairman Anil Kumar Lahoti and DoT Secretary Neeraj Mittal, urged all operators to take collective responsibility to ensure their networks are not being used for spam.