Airtel flags 8 billion spam calls, 800 million spam SMSes

After the government directed telecom operators to curb the spread of spam calls and messages, Bharti Airtel on Monday said it has flagged 8 billion spam calls and 800 million spam SMSes within two and a half months of launching its AI-powered, spam-fighting solution.

The AI-powered network has successfully identified close to 1 million spammers every day, the company said in a statement.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had asked telecom operators to stop spam calls and messages and comply with its direction regarding the whitelisting of URLs, APKs and OTT links.

In this regard, Airtel in September launched an AI-powered spam detection solution that would alert customers in real time about suspected spam calls and SMSes.

According to the company, in the last 2.5 months, it has alerted close to 252 million unique customers to these suspicious calls and has observed that there has been a 12 per cent decline in the number of customers answering them.

Six per cent of all calls on the Airtel network have been identified as spam calls, while 2 per cent of all SMSes have also been identified as spam.

“Interestingly, it has been observed that a staggering 35 per cent of the spammers have used landline telephones,” said the Airtel in its report.

Additionally, customers in Delhi have received the maximum number of spam calls, followed by customers in Andhra Pradesh and western Uttar Pradesh. Delhi is also where a maximum number of the spam calls have originated, followed by Mumbai and Karnataka.

In terms of SMSes, the maximum number have originated in Gujarat followed by Kolkata and Uttar Pradesh and the maximum number of customers targeted have been from Mumbai, Chennai and Gujarat.

As per the trends, 76 per cent of all spam calls have been targeted at male customers.

“Spam calls commence from 9 am onwards and gradually escalate in volume as the day progresses. The peak of spam activity is observed between noon and 3 pm, during which the highest concentration of spam calls occur,” said the company.

The government has allocated 10-digit numbers with the prefix 160 to for service and transactional calls. Additionally, those customers who have not opted for do-not-disturb (DND) and have subscribed to receiving promotional calls will continue to receive them from a 10-digit number with the prefix 140.

The number of registered complaints against unregistered senders or spam calls/SMSes reduced to 1.51 lakh in October, a 20 per cent drop from August, according to the government.