ANATOLY GOLOMOLZIN: ABOUT WORK ON ABOLISHING ROAMING IN EAEU, CIS AND BRICS

During a working visit to Kirgizia Deputy Head of FAS discussed collaboration and possibilities to jointly abolish roaming in EAEU, CIS and BRICS

was a speaker at a “5 + 1” meeting of the member of Collegium (Minister) on competition and antimonopoly regulation of the Eurasian Economic Commission and Heads of antimonopoly authorities of the member-states of the Eurasian Economic Union during the Eurasian Week Forum in Bishkek.

Deputy Head of FAS, who also leads the Headquarters for Joint Antimonopoly Investigations in the CIS and co-chairs the International Working Group on digital economy, made a report on the experience of collaboration and the prospects of radically solving the issues of abolishing international roaming.

Anatoly Golomolzin said that earlier, based on a report made by the Headquarters for Joint Antimonopoly Investigations at ICAP* “On the state of competition on the telecommunications markets in the CIS member-states”, in November 2010 the Council of the Heads of CIS Governments approved a package of measures to decrease prices for communications services in roaming. To execute these decisions, the antimonopoly bodies of Kazakhstan and Russia investigated cases on antimonopoly violations; other CIS states passed similar measures enabling multiple reductions of the tariffs for international roaming services in the CIS.

“The work in this direction will continue through the International Working Group (IWG) for developing competition on the markets of international communications in roaming. IWR is initiated and co-chaired by the antimonopoly authorities of Turkey and Russia. IWR meetings have been attended by representatives of competition agencies, Telecommunications Ministries and operators from Europe, Asia, Latin and North Americas, and Africa. As a result of our collaboration, the Fair Roaming Principles were drafted, that formed the basis for further cooperation towards improving regulations and extrapolating the best practices. Having obtained good experience of work on roaming and in view of its topicality, IWG expanded the agenda of several last meetings covering a wider range of antimonopoly and competition aspects in the digital economy”, commented Deputy Head of FAS.

He pointed out that the work on abolishing roaming is undertaken in several directions – both multisided, as in EAEU, CIS, and BRICS; and on a bilateral basis.

“To create favourable conditions for communicating and exchanging information between the peoples of the EAEU member-states, a comprehensive reform of inter-operation tem-work between partner operators is necessary with reduction of inter-operator roaming rates and the interconnect (call termination services)  rates. This solution will reduce subscriber tariffs for roaming communications services to the level comparable with the home region – “in roaming like at home”. It was demonstrated with the experience of the Russian Federation on abolishing national roaming, which was recognized the best digital economy practice by the World Bank and the International Competition Network in 2019. International and domestic experience shows that providing roaming communications services under the home region conditions increases consumer loyalty and the decrease of tariffs increases traffic commensurably. As a result, everybody wins: subscribers and telecommunications operators”, concluded Anatoly Golomolzin.

Deputy Head of FAS added:

“An Agreement is drafted to form common tariff space for the services of international call termination between the member-stated of the Eurasian Economic Union. We should consolidate the efforts to determine the conditions for optimizing (decreasing the rates and making them symmetrical) inter-operator roaming tariff-setting. Similarly, the Recommendations issued by the antimonopoly bodies and communications regulators in the CIS, which are endorsed by the CIS Governments, form the necessary conditions to adopt measures at the national level”.

“At the VI BRICS Competition Conference in Moscow in September 2019, the parties showed an interest in collaboration between the antimonopoly authorities to reduce roaming between our countries. The work on abolishing roaming for travelling between Russia and Belarus is also close to completion.; there is readiness to intensify bilateral talks in this areas with Kazakhstan and Kirgizia”, highlighted Anatoly Golomolzin.

Antimonopoly officers of EAEU and the Minister of the Eurasian Economic Commission on Competition as well as representatives of “Kazakhtelecom”, the CIS Association of Antimonopoly Experts supported the FAS initiative.

Anatoly Golomolzin summed up the results of discussing the roaming issue: “The passed acts and consistent actions at the international level harmonize the national laws and allow telecommunications operators, and if necessary, the antimonopoly bodies with involvement telecommunications regulators to decrease subscriber rated in roaming to the home region level. The geography of such solutions covers EAEU, CIS, and BRICS”.

Note:

*Intergovernmental Council on Coordinated Antimonopoly Policy