This is a general guide, not legal advice. It summarises public TRAI material as read on 2 October 2026. Rules and their interpretation change; check trai.gov.in and take advice for your business.
Every week, a small business owner asks some version of this: “Can my team call customers from our normal mobile numbers?” After TRAI’s 2025 changes, the answer depends on what kind of call it is.
What changed in TRAI’s 2025 rules?
In February 2025 TRAI amended the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations (TCCCPR), 2018. The main points for a calling team:
- Promotional calls must come from the 140 series, through registered telemarketers.
- Service and transactional calls from regulated entities (banks, insurers and similar) move to the 1600 series.
- Ordinary 10-digit numbers must not be used for telemarketing by unregistered senders.
- Penalties are faster and harsher. First violation: outgoing services barred for 15 days. Repeat: disconnection for one year and blacklisting across operators.
- Customers have 7 days (earlier 3) to complain about a spam call.
- Action threshold dropped to 5 complaints in 10 days, with investigation in 5 days instead of 30.
Which calls are we talking about?
| Type of call | Example | Typical route |
|---|---|---|
| Promotional, unsolicited | Calling a purchased list to sell a loan or flat | Registered telemarketer, 140 series, DND respected |
| Service / transactional by a regulated entity | Bank calling about a payment | 1600 series (phase-wise) |
| Reply to a customer’s own enquiry | Customer filled your form or called you; you call back | Your own business number, with a record of the enquiry |
| Existing customer service | Delivery update, renewal reminder to a paying client | Your own business number |
The first row is where small teams get into trouble. A team ringing a bought database from personal SIMs is exactly the pattern the 2025 rules target.
How should a small team call safely?
- Call people who asked to be called. Website forms, ad enquiries, walk-ins, referrals and existing customers.
- Keep the enquiry record. Source, date and time against every lead. If a complaint comes, this is your evidence.
- Stop when asked. Mark “do not call” and make sure no one else on the team rings that number.
- Do not buy lists. Bought databases are the fastest route to complaints, and five complaints in ten days is now enough to trigger action.
- Do not spray calls. Hundreds of short calls per SIM per day to strangers looks like spam to operators.
- For genuine promotion, use a registered telemarketer. If outbound campaigns to new audiences are central to your business, get a 140-series setup.
Where does a SIM-based call CRM fit?
A SIM-based tool like Dialmio is built for the third and fourth rows of the table: following up people who enquired and serving existing customers. It keeps every call against the lead record, lets you store the enquiry source in a lead field, lets you set your own “do not call” status, and shows the owner who called whom.
It is not a tool for unsolicited promotional calling. If that is your model, talk to a registered telemarketer and a lawyer first.
Sources
Read on 2 October 2026. Listed as plain text because this site does not link out to other websites.
- TRAI press release No. 11 of 2025:
cms.trai.gov.in/sites/default/files/2025-02/PR_No.11of2025.pdf - Fonearena, summary of the TCCCPR 2025 amendment:
fonearena.com/blog/446114/trai-tcccpr-2025-tougher-rules-spam-calls-sms.html - The Week, 9 July 2026, on the 140 and 1600 series:
theweek.in/news/biz-tech/2026/07/09/trai-is-changing-the-rules-can-truecaller-adapt.html