Indian telecom regulator TRAI completes blockchain pilot with IBM

IBM has announced that it has successfully completed blockchain pilots with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and Indian telecom providers, The Economic Times reported.

In July, TRAI notified new regulations that aim to curb the menace of unsolicited calls. It said that new regulations would encourage adoption of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), commonly known as blockchain, to ensure regulatory compliance while allowing innovation in the market.

TRAI and major telecom providers have been working with IBM to explore how blockchain technology can help solve the issues of coordination among multiple parties with respect to Do Not Call (DNC) registries and mobile number portability (MNP).

“We have completed proof of concepts and pilots with all the major telecom providers and with Trai in this space,” said Sriram Raghavan, vicepresident of IBM Research. “We anticipate that, going into the New Year, we’ll start to see blockchain solutions getting rolled out.”

Raghavan said that the pilots involved recording everything – from customer consent for the DNC service to whether the consent is respected – on blockchain.

“This gives Trai, as a regulator, more visibility and spot malfeasance quickly,” he said. “Mobile number portability, too, is a multi-party process involving a minimum of two telecom providers where blockchain can play a role.”

A TRAI official confirmed that the telecom firms have agreed to implement DLT-based systems in the forthcoming months. The DNC registry is expected to be the first to move towards DLT.

“We had a meeting (on Monday) and the telecom service providers are now in the process of aligning their vendors,” the official said.