By
NEW DELHI: The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has urged telecom operators to implement the calling name presentation (CNAP) service on mobile phones at the earliest. The service makes name display compulsory for incoming calls.
At a meeting with telecom operators last week, the department asked the firms to implement the CNAP without any delay, said officials.
During the meeting, the telcos are believed to have told the DoT that trials for the technology are ongoing and that they would implement the service once the technology stabilises. However, for 2G users, the service won’t be feasible as the technology does not permit it.
The plan to make name display compulsory for incoming calls is meant to curb spam and scam calls as the recipient of calls will be able to know who is calling. But technological constraints have prevented the implementation of the service on 2G networks, according to telcos.
In February last year, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) had called on the government to mandate telcos to implement the CNAP service and push handset manufacturers to enable the feature in six months in a bid to reduce customer harassment from unknown or spam callers.
While the telcos have successfully achieved proficiency in the CNAP within a circle, trials are ongoing for intra-circle wherein calls originate in one telecom circle but terminate in another, said a telco executive present at last week’s meeting.
Handset industry experts said there is no real urgency to mandate the CNAP without taking cognisance of ground realities, especially since there are enough mobile apps that already fulfil the objective of displaying the name of the caller, to make an informed decision about accepting or rejecting a call.
Industry executives also cited potential challenges around customer privacy violation if the CNAP service is mandated nationally. Some mobile phone users might be averse to sharing their names, they said.
Apart from the CNAP, the DoT has asked telcos to mark non +91 calls as international calls so that users are not scammed. Recently, there has been a spurt in international calls aimed at scamming mobile consumers.
