Indian Telcos Start Caller ID Service Trials in Select Cities: Report

The Indian telecom operators have started testing the caller ID service in select cities of the country. According to CNBC Awaaz, the trials are taking place in Haryana and Mumbai. The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had asked the telcos to display the name of the caller to the user receiving the call. This is a Truecaller-like service, but being implemented by the telcos. The trials will also soon start in other cities. Truecaller does the exact same thing utilising their database.

Telcos will showcase the registered name of the user on their books. This will help users identify spam calls. The technical name of this service is CNAP (Calling Name Presentation). The results from these trials will be shared by the government, after which, proper decisions about the implementation of the service will be taken.

It is worth noting here that the telcos have not been excited about the implementation of this service. This is because of the technical difficulties that will arise and also it can lead to higher wait times for customers when making the calls. The telecom operators will also have to drive up their investments in this area and since only 4G or 5G devices will be able to support it, many million customers will not benefit from this service.

Telcos have suggested that this should not be a mandatory service. It will be hard to implement, and the customer experience may get deteriorated. Truecaller is already in the market which can fetch the details of the caller and is advancing its technology to do other things. There would be a concern that the customers may not want to share their details here with other users and thus, privacy can be disrupted while implementing this service.