Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has no specific rules to regulate Short Message Service (SMS) aiming at social or political motives. No approval is required from PTA to launch any kind of campaign, whether social or political, through SMS services.
However, the authority promulgated the "Protection from Spam, Unsolicited, Fraudulent and Obnoxious Communication Regulations, 2009", which apply to all operators in relation to ensuring and protecting the interest of telecom consumers by preventing them from all such kinds of communication, chairman PTA Dr Mohammad Yaseen told Business Recorder.
He further said that as per procedures in vogue, the frequency of any SMS more than the specified number generated from a single MSISDN/telephone subscription/short code at a given time bearing the same contents to multiple MSISDN/telephone subscription inclusive of a numbering or/and community based series, shall be considered as a bulk activity. Accordingly, the subject activity shall be filtered and blocked by technical filters established at operator's end in compliance with the regulations.
He said that no one has approached PTA for this purpose. Some political parties have approved specific contact numbers from PTA to run their political campaign in the country, it is learnt.
Informed sources revealed that some political parties have formally registered themselves with PTA and pay monthly charges to the authority. Through the specific number, the desired persons send SMS to get party membership. After adding that person's data with party membership lists, the party regular sends invitations and other necessary messages to that member.
Media Cell In-charge Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI) Chaudhry Rizwan Hassan told this scribe that it is their democratic right to run political campaign through SMS. He confirmed that the party has registered with PTA through 80022. Any body can get PTI membership by sending a SMS to this number.