Ban on bulk SMS hits e-services dear

KOCHI: The Centre’s decision to ban short message services (SMS) across the country till September 30 in the wake of the upcoming Ayodhya verdict has come as a bolt from the blue for many small and big companies which use bulk SMS for their day-to-day business.

The ban has resulted in serious inconveniences to those using their mobile phones to carry out banking and financial transactions. Besides banking and financial services sectors, air and rail travellers have also been at the receiving end as they were unable to get updates on travel details.  The ban on bulk SMS, which is mainly used for marketing, has affected various information-based services such as SMS alerts on cash withdrawal and debit card spending, balance enquiry and transaction details, share-trading alerts and SMS-based internet banking services.

The Department of Telecom had excluded transactional SMS from the purview of the ban imposed on bulk short messages at the intervention of Reserve Bank of India and the telecom operators, but this has not eased the situation as the mobile phone banking users  use the same SMS gateway that is being used by the bulk SMS service providers. It is feared that the ban on the gateway will subsequently freeze all the banking services.  

“There are over 7,000 small and medium enterprises operating in the SMS industry in the state. The ban has adversely affected major players in this segment. Many banks are facing difficulty in communicating the transaction codes to the customers. Hence they are not able to make Internet transactions for many days,” CEO of TNGiCUBE Technology Resources India Pvt Ltd, Thiruvananthapuram,  Kiran Shankar said.

  “Around 80 percent of the mobile phones in the country do not support GPRS services. Many banks provide encrypted SMS to carry out mobile banking transactions through such phones. The passwords for those transactions are SMS-aided and they continue to be hit by the ban,” he said.

 “The Centre has ordered the ban as a preventive step to ensure that bulk SMSes and MMSes are not misused by the anti-national elements to disrupt communal harmony in the country. The fact is that the bulk SMSes can be sent using international SMS gateway and GSM modems, which have not been blocked or banned under any law. Such information can be transmitted as voice calls, auto diallers and PRI services which also do not come under the ban. However, these loopholes in security have not been addressed by the government,” TNGiCUBE Technology Resources India Pvt Ltd managing director Suraj S Kumar said.