PRESS: Mobile connection prices in Russia rise 15% since Oct 2016

MOSCOW, Aug 25 (PRIME) -- The average price of a minimum bundle tariff of Russian mobile operators reached 268.5 rubles in August, which is 15% more than in October 2016 and 30% more than in April 2016, business daily Vedomosti reported on Friday, citing an analytical research of agency Content Review.

Content Review studied the cheapest bundle tariffs in all regions of the country with the minimum package of at least 1 gigabyte of the mobile Internet and voice calls. The agency uses this indicator along with an average salary in a region to calculate the index of accessibility of mobile connection for every region.

The agency’s analyst Sergei Polovnikov explained the increase in tariffs by significant expenses of operators on construction of networks. Contestation with the Federal Antimonopoly Service on the abolition of intra-network roaming also had its impact. A number of operators had started getting ready to obey by compensating the move with this increase in tariffs, he said.

News agency Telecom Daily’s General Director Denis Kuskov said tariffs have been growing less in the previous years. Operators hiked tariffs by 5% in 2015.

The competitive situation forces operators to revise terms of tariff plans more often than they used to do it. Meanwhile, the cheapest tariff does not show the whole picture as it reflects the situation only for the low-budget segment of mobile connection, Kuskov said. In general, mobile connection became more expensive by some 10% in January–June, he said.

(59.1397 rubles – U.S. $1)

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