Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), India’s state-owned telecom, has registered 7,477 businesses on its blockchain-based communication platform after authorities imposed new regulations to protect consumers from spam and fraud.
It has been reported that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) established messaging regulations that require scrubbing consumer communication messages to ensure that the receiver of the message has opted in for such interactions. The drive is supported by BSNL DLT, a content verification platform built on ledger-based blockchain protocols.
However, as the SMS regulation is applicable for all industry verticals, the list of 7,477 registrations includes banks, educational institutions, and private businesses.
TRAI had reportedly warned about blocking communications of non-compliant entities, as an official said:
“The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India will accept no reason, give no consideration and no extension to all those who have not streamlined their SMS process. Let their businesses suffer 100%.”
The report said that businesses using BSNL DLT will be subject to SMS screening against pre-registered messaging templates hosted on the blockchain. In case of a mismatch, the message will be blocked by the company’s telecom provider honoring consumer interest.
Likewise, India’s commitment to blockchain adoption has strengthened after a state-run university, the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM), joined 38 global organizations to govern the Hedera public ledger as a part of the Hedera Governing Council.
Prabhu Rajagopal, IITM’s Center for Nondestructive Evaluation, said that the institution will test use cases around public blockchains for payments, healthcare, industry, and digital media.
Thus, on July 27, a sizable Indian institute implemented LegitDoc, a tamper-proof credentialing system built on the Ethereum blockchain, to verify diploma certificates. Currently, other Indian universities are exploring and implementing similar strategies.
Source: Cointelegraph