Antitrust expects internetwork roaming to be voided in April–Jun

MOSCOW, Feb 9 (PRIME) -- The Federal Antimonopoly Service expects the internetwork roaming in Russia to be cancelled in April–June and national roaming in July–September, Deputy Director Anatoly Golomolzin said on Thursday.

“We’ve agreed to solve these problems this year gradually...We expect connection operators to present us their proposals on abolition of the unreasonable difference in tariffs for internetwork roaming and stop using this notion at all. Roaming is used only when a subscriber gets connection services in a network of another operator. If the subscriber is in the network of the same operator, tariffs cannot vary much,” Golomolzin said.

All the prerequisites to cut tariffs exist. “As to the internetwork roaming, we are waiting for proposals, which will be implemented in the second quarter. The matters of national roaming on the remaining territory of the country, we expect (measures taken) in the third quarter 2017.”

The lag in timing roots in the necessity to introduce changes not only to the interoperator settlements across the country, but to facilitate the character of internetwork interaction, which is currently controlled by an order of the Communications and Mass Media Ministry.

The antimonopoly service and mobile operators are going to submit their proposals to amend the order, which could be adopted by July.

The internetwork roaming is active inside some networks in the whole country, while national roaming works when a network of an operator is absent in a region.

Connection prices will not grow in the wake of national roaming cancellation, Golomolzin said. “We don’t see such threats, because in this case the reduction of tariffs for connection services in roaming is compensated by a possible increase in traffic. Both operators and subscribers will win,” the official said.

Connection prices in Crimea can become equal to an average national level at the end of the first or beginning of the second quarter, Golomolzin said.

End