Amazon, Google, Uber may have to pay higher rates for messages to consumers

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (Trai) recent recommendation on the definition of international traffic, comes as a setback for global companies like Amazon, Uber, Google, Meta, WhatsApp, among others, as they will have to shell out a higher amount to telcos for sending SMSes to their consumers.

As per the definition proposed by Trai for international traffic, any one-time passwords (OTPs) or other transactional or promotional messages sent by these players to the consumers in India would be treated as international SMSes and charged at international tariffs and not domestic tariffs set by telcos.