Jio, Airtel, BSNL, and other telecom operators are opposed to TRAI’s Caller Identification feature

Telecom operators have rejected the TRAI proposal to bring the Calling Name Presentation or Caller ID feature to their networks.  Reliance Jio, Airtel, Vodafone-Idea, and BSNL believe this feature will create privacy issues and will have technical difficulties. Plus, existing handsets might not support this feature.

Truecaller already provides the facility of caller identification. However, the TRAI proposal is different as the regulator wants SIM registration data to display the caller’s name. The name would be derived from the KYC (know your customer) database that is maintained by the telcos. However, the telecom operators are not in favour of the caller identification mechanism or feature. The mechanism is called Calling Name Presentation (CNAP).

Last year in November, the Telecom Regulator of India has come up with a consultation CNAP paper. The CNAP feature will enable users to identify who is calling them. This feature will reduce spam calls and curb harassment as a person will have a choice to ignore the call.

India’s largest telecom player Reliance Jio states that this feature will increase data privacy concerns and several technical issues. In addition, devices do not support the CNAP feature, and this might create issues with operating software. This will also have a load on signaling as it might increase the call set-up time which will automatically increase the load on the network. This will impact the connectivity. However, privacy of the customers will be the biggest issue.

Vodafone-Idea believes that this will feature is for 4G and this is nothing to do with 2G and 3G networks. The telco also pointed out similar issues and said devices are not ready yet and due to financial stress, it is difficult for them to bring this feature at this time. Moreover, state-run telecom operator BSNL suggests that it might be a value-added service and it should not be mandatory for telcos.