What is 140 / 160 / 1600 Number Series?
In India, TRAI directs businesses to use dedicated number series for commercial calls instead of ordinary mobile numbers: 140 for promotional calls, and 160 or the newer 1600 series for service and transactional calls.
Also known as: 140 series, 160 series, 1600 series, telemarketing number series
How it works
Calls from the 140 series identify themselves as promotional, so recipients and operators know what to expect. The 160 series was introduced for service and transactional calls, and TRAI has since moved to a 1600 series for that purpose. The point is traceability: a customer can recognise a legitimate business call, and ordinary 10-digit mobile numbers stop being a place for bulk telemarketing.
What changes in practice
A business running outbound campaigns obtains numbers in the right series through its telecom provider, tied to its DLT registration, and uses the series that matches the content: promotional versus service or transactional. Rules and rollout dates have been revised more than once, so confirm the latest direction with TRAI or your operator before you switch or launch.
Common mistake
Using a transactional series for what is really promotional content. A payment reminder is service; an offer attached to that reminder can reclassify the call. Keep each campaign's purpose clean and register templates accordingly.
Primary sources
Regulations change. Check the current text before relying on a detail. This page is general information, not legal advice.
Where this shows up at Vaami
Vaami supports DLT-registered sender IDs and template scrubbing for outbound campaigns to Indian numbers, and customers can use bring-your-own-telephony to run calls on their own provisioned numbers.
See it on a real call.
Hear how a Vaami voice agent handles this on a live conversation in your language and your use case.