HYDERABAD: Many take pride in their texting skills. Quite a few even type with their eyes closed and break records as far as the number of SMSes is concerned. For all those texting addicts, the new regulation of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) limiting the number of SMSes per day to 100, which comes into effect from Tuesday, has come as a shock.“Hundred? I use up 100 SMSes in an hour everyday. It’s obnoxious,” remarks Vibha Agarwal, a second-year B Com student of Villa Marie college. “I send about 500-600 SMSes everyday. I will now have to shift to internet to chat,” chips in Nisha Jain, a B Com final-year student at St Francis college.“On the flip side, it is good that the rule is coming into force just before exams. Everytime we promise ourselves that we will keep the phone away during exams but it never happens. Now we won’t have a choice,” she adds.The girls feel the greatest advantage of an SMS is that it fits in the budget of a student. Calls are expensive, they say. While for students it is more about making amends to the number of forwards they send and the number of hours they chat with their friends, for many professionals, sending SMS is part of their job.Take for example Abdullah Monis. He owns Tawakkal Rent Agency and has to keep updating his customers about the houses available for rent or sale. To make a call everytime is a costly affair for him. “Sometimes I send about 50 SMSes but generally it exceeds 100 a day. We register with a website which will alert us through SMS about customers looking for houses for rent or sale. We interact with the website through SMS on one hand and we keep updating the customer about available houses on the other. We cannot call everytime,” says Monis, adding that buying a news SIM is not a solution because it takes time to build a network with that number again. “I cannot understand how security is connected with limiting SMSes. There are still 100 SMSes. Those who want to create trouble will do it even now.”Sonus Media Public Relations personnel D Ramchandram finds the regulation ridiculous. “Our country is well known for its redundant laws. I’m not going to accept this. I will mobilize public opinion against this rule,” he fumes. He feels the government should infact encourage SMS and discourage calls to reduce the effect of radiation on those who are heavily dependant on cell phones. What is the point? One person will buy more SIM cards and it will only add to the problem, says Ramchandram.When asked about the effect new regulation will have on SMS service providers such as Way2SMS, Raju Vanapala, founder & CEO of the company says it will not affect them directly. This will affect the subscribers. “TRAI regulations are well crafted when we consider the consumer privacy issue. It will protect them from spam. On the other side, unfortunately, even legitimate SMS service providers like us who provide free SMS service to people and do not send spam, will have to register ourselves as telemarketers,” says Vanapala.One of the TRAI regulations which will trouble a Way2SMS user is the Do Not Disturb service which helps customers choose not to receive spam or commercial messages. With this rule in force and with every SMS service provider regarded as telemarketer, if a person sends an SMS through Way2SMS to his friend who has registered himself in Do not Disturb (DND), the message will not be delivered.
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