BSNL rolls out anti-spam and anti-smishing protection for mobile users across India

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL) has announced the nationwide deployment of its network-side anti-spam and anti-smishing system on Thursday. This is aimed at protecting mobile subscribers from fraudulent SMS messages carrying suspicious links.

The system requires no user intervention with no application download or requirement of changing settings and works directly at the network level. Messages containing suspicious or phishing URLs are withheld in real-time before they even reach BSNL customers, Centre said in a statement today. At the same time, this ensures that essential communications such as one-time passwords (OTPs), banking alerts, and government notifications continue to be delivered in compliance with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) and Unsolicited Commercial Communication (UCC) framework.

The service was first previewed during the India Mobile Congress 2024 and is now being extended across BSNL’s telecom circles as part of phased cutovers. The system has been engineered in partnership with a Hyderabad-based cloud communications provider Tanla Platforms.

The underlying technology uses a combination of artificial intelligence and machine learning engines, natural language processing, link expansion, and reputation intelligence to analyse SMS messages at line rate. It works in tandem with the blockchain-based DLT stack that Indian telecom operators already employ to regulate commercial messaging. Independent assessments of the platform have claimed an efficacy rate of more than 99% against smishing attempts.

BSNL said the scale of detection is significant as the system is capable of identifying more than 1.5 million scam attempts daily. Each month, it flags over 35,000 unique fraudulent web links and 60,000 scam-associated WhatsApp and mobile numbers. Four proprietary AI/ML engines form the core of the system’s analytics. This comes amid government’s growing emphasis on increasing BSNL userbase. BSNL currently holds a 7.78% market share in wireless mobile subscribers as of July

For customers, the rollout means that SMS messages carrying malicious links are automatically blocked at the point of delivery, reducing exposure to phishing-driven credential theft and payment fraud. The protection is enabled by default for all BSNL mobile subscribers in circles where the system has gone live.

The measure comes amid a surge in digital frauds targeting mobile users through SMS and messaging applications. However, BSNL is not the first network to do so, Airtel and Jio have previously announced antispam measures.