WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF THE FAS RUSSIA, RUSSIAN TELECOM OPERATORS HAVE REDUCED ROAMING PRICES IN BELARUS

From November 1, 2020, the cost of communication services has changed for subscribers of Beeline, MTS, MegaFon and Tele2 when they are in the territory of the Republic of Belarus

Russian telecom operators have reduced tariffs for communication services to a comfortable level on the principle In Roaming Like at Home, tariffs for communication services are close to the cost of tariffs in the home region. The work to cancel roaming in the territory of the Union State was carried out at the site of the Ministry of Telecom and the Mass Communications of Russia with the participation of the Ministry of Communications of the Republic of Belarus, the FAS Russia, the MART (the Ministry of Antimonopoly Regulation and Trade of the Republic of Belarus), telecom operators of the Russian Federation and telecom operators of the Republic of Belarus for several years.

It should be reminded that on December 7, 2018, at the Skolkovo Innovation Center, within the IV International Scientific and Practical Conference “Antimonopoly Policy: Science, Practice, Education” a Russian-Belarusian round table was held on tariff formation for roaming communication services, which developed an approach to defining the concept Roaming Cancellation. The parties also defined an action plan, according to which a draft Road Map on the cancellation of international roaming in the Union State was prepared, containing specific measures and deadlines for their implementation. The document was signed by the Ministers of Communications of the two countries in December 2019.

“Reducing the cost of communication services to the level of home prices is an important stage for the formation of a single telecommunications space of the Union State,” Alexey Dotsenko, Deputy Head of the FAS Russia said.

“Joint work on the implementation of the Roadmap measures to abolish roaming in the territory of the Union State, as well as an action plan for joint actions to identify and suppress fraud on the telecommunication networks of Russia and the Republic of Belarus made it possible to move to the final stage and reduce tariffs from November 1, 2020” he explained.

“Reducing the cost of communication services in Belarus will allow testing the mechanisms of interaction with Belarusian operators when passing roaming traffic. Testing will last until the end of 2020, and upon its completion, further steps will be taken to abolish international roaming in the Union State,” Elena Zaeva, Head of the Department for Regulation of Telecommunication and Information Technology said.