Antitrust welcomes MegaFon, VimpelCom moves, to study cases Wed

MOSCOW, Aug 7 (PRIME) -- The Federal Antimonopoly Service has welcomed cancellation of payments for incoming calls during trips across Russia by large mobile operators MegaFon and VimpelCom, working as Beeline, and will continue studying cases of intra-network roaming on Wednesday, the service said on Tuesday.

“The actions of the companies will be scrutinized by the commission of the Federal Antimonopoly Service and taken into consideration when making a decision on the cases on violation of the antimonopoly law on August 8,” the watchdog said.

Intra-network roaming applies when an operator uses various tariffs for different regions of the country.

The antimonopoly service’s Deputy Director Anatoly Golomolzin said, “We welcome the actions taken by VimpelCom and MegaFon and think that they contribute to formation of fair conditions for subscribers. Of course, we hope that other operators will make all required efforts to liquidate intra-network roaming and offer subscribers an option to receive services of mobile connection in trips across Russia without any extra charges in compliance with terms in the home region in the nearest time and precisely by the set data, like VimpelCom, for example.”

VimpelCom said earlier that it will cancel payments for incoming calls from other regions in trips across the country from August 20. MegaFon promised to cancel similar payment for the majority of subscribers by September 1 and for the rest of clients in the first half of September.

Major mobile operator MTS also said that incoming calls in other regions will become free soon.

The Federal Antimonopoly Service opened cases against MTS, MegaFon, and VimpelCom in March after finding their reports on the abolition of intra-network roaming as failing to be up to the earlier issued warrants. The operators were supposed earlier to take measures to cancel intra-network roaming by February, while the time given to mobile operator T2 RTK Holding, known widely as Tele2, was extended till the end of August.

T2 RTK Holding press secretary Olga Galushina said, “Intra-network roaming is already cancelled on the absolute majority of Tele2 tariffs, and the company’s subscribers use connection services in trips across Russia as in the home region. We’ll finish all activities on time.”

End