Russian antitrust starts case over Rostelecom cable tunnel prices

MOSCOW, Aug 5 (PRIME) -- Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service has launched a case against telecom giant Rostelecom due to a significant increase of tariffs for access to underground cable tunnels, and the first hearing is scheduled for September 16, the service said in a statement Friday.

Under a 2015 methodology of tariff calculation, which includes a formula for cable tunnel upgrade costs, the companies that use the tunnels pay the bulk of the renovation costs, the service said.

A representative of Rostelecom could not be reached for comment.

The watchdog opened a similar case against Rostelecom in August 2014 when it suspected the operator of setting and keeping monopolistically high prices for cable channel lease. The case was opened after complaints from several connection operators that Rostelecom had raised its tariffs by up to 50% since January 2014.

Rostelecom President Sergei Kalugin said then that the company did not increase tariffs, but switched to work with tenants of cable channels on market conditions. The service dropped the case in April 2015 as it discovered no violations.

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