UPDATE: Antitrust case against MegaFon higher tariffs to be heard on Mar 6

(Adds comments from MegaFon, background in last four paragraphs)

MOSCOW, Jan 30 (PRIME) -- A case of Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service against one of the top local mobile operators, MegaFon, for hiking basic tariffs for connection services in international roaming will be heard on March 6, the service said on Monday on its Web site.

“The reason to open the case was MegaFon’s decision to raise basic tariffs from December 12, 2016, in international roaming on 38 directions,” the authority said.

MegaFon notified its subscribers of a 20% to 2,200% increase in prices of calls, SMSs and the Internet, if clients did not use special options.

Other operators, which were in comparable conditions, did not raise tariffs, the service said.

Yulia Dorokhina, head of MegaFon’s press service, said the operator was forced to raise the tariffs.

“For a long time our prices had been much lower than those of our competitors, but a lower volume of roaming services, higher exchange rates and higher prices of roaming partners have pushed us to revise basic tariffs,” Dorokhina said.

“Now MegaFon’s basic prices are comparable with the prices of other Russian operators and even lower for some services and directions. Moreover, we cut prices of the mobile Internet in some countries and voice bundle tariffs.”

MegaFon said in December 2016 that it received notifications on increases in call termination prices from 28 European countries, where operators can seek to recover losses after the cancellation of roaming in the E.U. in 2017.

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