In tune with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI)’s regulations to protect mobile phone subscribers from unsolicited Commercial Communication (UCC) or spam calls by leveraging the power of blockchain, Tech Mahindra on Thursday announced that it was deploying its solution that would impact over 300 million mobile subscribers in the country. Speaking to journalists in Hyderabad, Rajesh Dhuddu, Global Practice Leader – Blockchain, Tech Mahindra, while not naming the telco whose subscribers would benefit, said the solution is in line with the regulations that will kick in from the last week of May.
The solution, he says, aims at mitigating the issue of spam calls. Last year, Tech Mahindra had designed the Blockchain solution, in compliance with the regulations and guidelines of TRAI and the company along with Microsoft demonstrated to the regulator the proof of concept of this solution, which is meant to enable telecom providers in preventing unauthorised access of their subscribers’ data.
The company has a team of 50 people across Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Chennai, who are involved in writing the blockchain code. The revenue model that Tech Mahindra is following for the telco is based on one-time implementation followed by managed services. Dhuddu did not share details of charges or the revenue expected, saying the company was in a silent period and could not discuss these. However, Dhuddu says, the attractiveness of this solution is that the company has not built ‘consent (from a customer that a tele marketer may need) as a service’ offering. It could be deployed in different verticals such as health, perhaps for maintaining patient health records, or in media and entertainment industry to protect IPR. He says the company is already in discussion with telco operators abroad to tap global customers for this offering. With 800 million subscribers who would get impacted by the TRAI regulation, this could be world’s largest use case for a blockchain solution in this space, he says. Other than Tech Mahindra, the other companies tapping this market are IBM and Tanla, says Dhuddu. How it works is following: What is blockchained is the individual preference and details of those whom the subscriber has permitted to reach out with messages and calls.
A note issued by the company says Tech Mahindra is demonstrating Blockchain capabilities in diverse sectors including telecom, manufacturing, hi-tech industries and financial services. For instance, in the financial sector, Tech Mahindra has designed a solution for one of the largest public sector banks in India to provide an immutable record of audit transactions and enable single view of transaction data from multiple systems on the blockchain. He says, “At Tech Mahindra, we are betting big on Blockchain as part of our TechMNxt charter, to deliver tangible business value and empower our customers to provide a completely differentiated experience to their end customers.” As part of the TechMNxt charter, Tech Mahindra is “progressively investing in next generation technologies to cater to the customer’s evolving and dynamic needs”. Numbers were not shared as it is a silent period for the company. “The digital transformation provider has already identified and is working on a holistic framework called Block Ecosystem that comprises various levers such as Block Studio, Block Engage, Block Talks, Block Geeks, Block Accelerate, Block Access and Block Value.”
[“source=businesstoday”]
