No OTP from November 30? Important update customers of Mukesh Ambani’s Jio, Airtel, Voda, BSNL must know

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has allayed the fears of Jio, BSNL, Airtel, and Vi users, who are worried that they will stop receiving OTPs required to access various crucial services such as banking, if their network provider does not implement the new traceability rule by TRAI’s November 30 deadline.
Responding to the rumors and speculations being circulated about the OTP issue on social media platform, TRAI assured customers that implementation of the traceability rule will not affect important text messages such as OTPs, and the users will be able to receive OTPs without any delay or hindrance.
New TRAI rule comes into effect from December 1
Earlier, the telecom regulator, in a major step to curb the menace the of spam SMS messages and prevent phishing attacks, had asked all telecom providers, including Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio, Sunil Mittal’s Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea (Vi), and state-owned BSNL to implement the traceability rule from December 1.
TRAI’s traceability rule mandates that all messages from senders to must be traceable to prevent the misuse of messaging services for spam and phishing.
The regulator had asked the providers to implement the rule by October 1, 2024, then extended to November 1, and now the last date has been set to December 1.
Besides promotional and telemarketing message, the traceability rule also affects One-Time-Passwords (OTPs), which one uses to access app, and transfer money/access their bank account details.
What is TRAI’s new traceability rule?
The traceability rule will allow telecom operators to provide information about the source of messages sent to users. This will enable law enforcement agencies to track down cyber scammers and prevent phishing attacks and spam messages, according to TRAI.
TRAI has warned that unwanted promo messages, which can be categorized as spam, and phishing attacks by cyber scammer are on the rise, adding that often these messages are used by scammers to access sensitive information of users, such as OTPs, which are used to gain access to their bank accounts, and loot their hard-earned money.
However, telecom providers such as Jio, Airtel, and Vi, remain hesitant to implement TRAI’s directive, stating that several telemarketing firms are unwilling to adopt to these changes, thus making the new rule hard to implement.