Aawaara

Stop TRAIng idiots - You think you are here to solve problems, we will create more!

The motivation for this post is the termination charges of 5p/sms that come into effect from 25th Oct, 2011 via the latest TRAI notification, latest in the series of oppressive regulations (w.r.t to entrepreneurs). For anyone who thinks that 5p/sms isn’t much, the truth is that it almost doubles the cost, and is even more than an increase of 100% if you had high volumes.

Statutory Warning: I will not be subtle in my criticism. If you are satisfied with what you are getting, and don’t give a damn about what you may be missing, or have turned a blind eye towards killing of innovation, and the limitless possibilities that sms communication could have, this post is not for you. Please note that no one is endorsing spam here, but terminating all communication cannot be the solution to those pesky SMSes. For people who have heart aches due to name calling, you have been warned. You may choose to opt out (of all communication by subscribing to NCPR/DND list), and discontinue reading. Just ensuring that this is no unsolicited communication… ;)

The story so far:

• Airtel exits bulk sms space in september 2010
• TRAI comes up with a set of regulations in March, 2011
• Implementation postponed indefinitely due to obvious faults
• TRAI again comes up with a similar set of regulations (I still don’t know what they were doing for 6 months), which come into effect from 27th Sep, 2011
• People point out the problems and there is a lot of hue and cry. The big/small players (businesses, startups) are worried at the inherent foolishness of the regulations
• I write an email to TRAI, a minister and people in Nasscom and TIE pointing out the problems. Haven’t received a reply till date, not even an acknowledgement from anyone that the problem even exists
• Within 12 hours of the new regulations coming into effect TRAI issues an amendment that exempts the big players (facebook, twitter, linkedin, google, justdial, etc.)
• TRAI comes up with a 5p/sms termination charge that comes into effect from 25th Oct, 2011 and the money goes to the receiving network
• Ecommerce players (probably I don’t need to name the bigger players) are exempted from this termination charge
• Airtel stands to benefit the most due to the recent termination charges, as they have the largest network and they have already exited the bulk sms space (so they don’t need to pay anybody)

For those of you who still don’t get it, or are feigning ignorance, I’ll put it down it words. The inferences:

• When I first read that airtel was lobbying hard for these regulations, I wasn’t sure enough. As someone has said- the end justifies the means, and by looking at the end I am now able to connect the dots. A pure win situation for airtel and probably they will be making more money than what they would have if they were in the bulk sms space. They don’t pay anybody and everybody pays them, and they get paid more money (5p) than what the bulk sms service provider earns (2-3p) in the first place. Pure Profit!
• The regulations didn’t work, and TRAI seems to be admitting to that by introducing the termination charge, or is there something else to it. Time and again I am reminded of the fact that India is the land of opportunities is you know the right people, and have the right amount of money to spend on them. Whatever happened to that policy on fine for more than 5 violations, nobody seems to care. Do we have any data which tells us that it failed, and to justify the introduction of termination charges? Weren’t the regulations foolish in the first place? Don’t we need to correct them first before introducing new ones?
• The world isn’t fair. There are no guardian angels in the world of entrepreneurship. Everybody is for himself (maybe that’s the fun part and makes success more sweet and enjoyable). If you are a big player, good for you, and if you aren’t - $@# & off! Bad timing dude.

In your ‘Pursuit of Happyness’ - “You can only depend on yourself. The cavalry ain’t coming.”

So what’s next from our entrepreneur friendly government - email regulations, facebook terminations, twitter reverberations!
 

TRAIng to get over it!

The TRAI regulations that come into effect from 27th September, 2011 are certainly a blow to me as well as BillBaba.com. Though the regulations may sound foolish, but the bitter truth is that we will have to live with them. I just received an email from my service provider stating the changes:

1) No SMS communication between 9PM-9AM. How do we take care of registrations that happen between this time? Do we send the confirmation code (and other communication) the next day? Has anyone at TRAI heard about ‘User Experience’?I don’t think so after looking at their official websites.

2) There is a pre defined set of transactional sms categories (bank, financial institution, irctc, airlines, educational institutes, DTH), everything else goes into the promotional category. Everything is legal for the transactional folks, and nothing for everyone else. What mission critical information do DTH operators send? Is there a DTH lobby at work here? I heard that the government believes in providing a level playing field to everyone.3) No opt in services. Either you are in a category, or you are not! And if you opt to receive messages of a category you invite all the spam. I thought that that the problem that we were trying to solve here was how to get rid of spam, instead of how to invite spam.

4) The identifier will now we a number (unique id) instead of the short code (DM-BILLBABA). So effectively everything goes marked as spam, and the user will have to read all the messages to separate out the good from the bad. There is no way you can tell the user upfront that the message if from you. Genuine isn’t genuine anymore! It seemed we were trying to save on time here.

Whatever the problem originally was, cutting off all communication cannot be the solution. Yes we all have been bothered by pesky calls and SMSes for too long, and the general sense prevailing may be that the regulations will act as a saviour; but this is a classic case of throwing out the baby with the bath water!

I already heard people complaining about the startup ecosystem in India and here comes another blow. I personally think that the regulations are outrageous and lack common sense. What is everyone else planning to do? I think that a lot of people rely on genuine SMS communication. Anyone going for a PIL or EIL (Entrepreneurs interest litigation) in fact. It’s the ecosystem at stake here!

How are group buying sites dealing with this? Anyone from snapdeal?

Suggested Solution: You ought to differentiate between the different kinds of communication, and cannot regard everything as promotional. Make room for opt in services where you can put the onus of providing auditable information in case of dispute on the service provider.