The 30-second version
- You register your business with one telco operator's DLT portal (Vodafone, Jio, or Airtel — pick whichever your bank already deals with). Cost: ₹5,000–10,000 one-time. Time: ~7 business days.
- You file your outbound headers (sender IDs your AI agent will announce) and message templates (the actual prompts) on the DLT portal. Approval: ~3–5 days per template.
- Cualify stores your DLT entity ID + template IDs in your org settings and refuses to dispatch any call where the template ID isn't attached. We also scrub every contact list against TRAI's NCPR (Do Not Disturb) feed within 24 hours of dispatch.
You stay the Principal Entity in the eyes of TRAI. That's deliberate — DLT compliance is your legal obligation, and bundling our entity in front of yours would (a) inflate our fines if you slipped up, (b) leave you with no recourse if we ever sunset the platform.
Why DLT exists
TRAI's 2018 Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations (TCCCPR) mandate that every commercial caller in India be registered on a Distributed Ledger so the regulator can trace any unsolicited call back to its source. Without DLT registration, the carriers (Airtel, Jio, Vodafone, etc.) are required to block your outbound traffic outright. There is no consumer-facing workaround.
The four DLT artifacts you register
1. Principal Entity (PE)
The legal business. Requires GSTIN, PAN, signing-authority KYC, registered office address. One PE per business; you only do this once.
2. Header (sender ID)
The 3–11 character name the recipient sees on caller ID or in the call announcement (e.g. VK-CUALIFY). Typically you register 2–4 headers: one for transactional (OTPs, appointment confirmations), one for promotional (marketing), one for service-explanatory (post-sale support). Each header costs ~₹500/year.
3. Templates
The actual content of the call. For voice, these are the scripted segments your AI agent must stick to (the conversational LLM can adapt within them but can't go off-template). Each template has a unique TEMPLATE_ID the carrier checks on every dispatch. Templates are per-language — your Hindi template and English template are separate entries.
4. Consent
A logged record per recipient that they opted in (or that you have a transactional relationship — invoice, EMI, booking — that exempts the call from consent). Cualify captures consent timestamps automatically inside your contact lists.
Which DLT portal should you register on?
You only need to register with one — they cross-honour each other's ledgers. Pick by your existing relationship:
- Vodafone DLT (vilpower.in) — most common for SMBs; least painful UI
- Jio DLT (trueconnect.jio.com) — pick this if you already have a Jio business account
- Airtel DLT (airtel.in/business/dlt) — usually slowest approval; only use if your bank/CA insists
- BSNL DLT (ucc-bsnl.co.in) — government-owned, niche use cases
Storing your DLT IDs in Cualify
- Go to Cualify → /integrations/telephony
- On your connected provider tile, click DLT settings
- Paste your PE ID, default header, and template IDs per language
- Save
From this point on, every dispatch through Cualify attaches the template ID automatically. If you forget to register a template ID for a new playbook, the dispatch fails with a friendly error rather than burning a TRAI strike.
What Cualify enforces at dispatch
- Template ID required. No template ID → no dispatch. Surfaced in the campaign launcher as a blocking validation.
- Calling-window check. India regulation forbids non-transactional outbound between 21:00 and 09:00 IST. We hard-gate this; campaigns scheduled outside those hours stay in "scheduled" status until the window opens.
- NCPR scrub. Every contact list is matched against the TRAI Do Not Disturb feed within 24h of dispatch; flagged numbers are skipped and logged on the campaign report.
- Disclosure clip. The first 5 seconds of every outbound call play a short "This is an AI agent calling on behalf of {org}" clip in the conversation language — mandatory under TRAI's 2024 AI calling addendum.
What stays on you
- The actual DLT registration process (forms, KYC, payments)
- Renewing your PE registration annually (~₹2,000)
- Maintaining recipient consent records and producing them if TRAI asks
- Updating template text if your agent's script changes substantially
Need help with the DLT portal itself?
We don't run the DLT registration for you, but we'll happily walk you through your first PE + header + template setup over a call. Email [email protected] with your business details and we'll book a 30-minute screen-share.
What's next?
- DPDP Act 2023 compliance — the data-side counterpart to DLT
- Connect Exotel if you haven't already