for non-payment of Internet services

Yesterday, information leaked to the media that the local telephone monopolist OJSC North-West Telecom no longer has the right to disconnect the telephone for non-payment of the Internet on credit service. It turns out that the court decision prohibiting Sevzaptelecom from using the right to disconnect was made back in April of this year. Earning about $3 million a year from the service, the company has until now hidden this fact, not wanting to give up money. At the end of September 2001, the territorial department of the Ministry of Antimonopoly Policy (TU MAP) for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region recognized the disconnection of telephones for unpaid “Internet on credit” services as illegal and ordered Sevzaptelecom to abandon this practice. Antimonopoly officials also demanded that Sevzaptelecom introduce different Internet bills on credit and long-distance calls.
TU MAP motivated its actions as follows. Firstly, according to the rules for the provision of telephone services, approved by the Government of the Russian Federation in September 1997, “in case of late payment for telephone services, the operator has the right to suspend the subscriber’s access to telecommunication networks.” According to the TU MAP, Internet access is not a telephone service and, therefore, shutdown sanctions cannot be applied to Internet defaulters. In other words, telephone service and Internet access are two different services. Indeed, this circumstance is indirectly confirmed by the Ministry of Communications itself. In order for a company to provide telephony and Internet access services, it needs to obtain two different licenses.
Secondly, every provider would like to provide the Internet on credit to its customers. True, until now only the monopolist was given access to the “switch”, which allowed him to carry out targeted attacks on non-paying users and effectively deal with them. In this regard, TU MAP convicted Sevzaptelecom of “unjustified competitive advantage.”
The September order of the antimonopoly officers obliged Sevzaptelecom to stop disconnecting the telephone for non-payment of “Internet on credit” from November 1, 2001. Having learned about this, many loan lovers attacked the operator’s modem pools. However, all fans of “free cheese” were disappointed: they did not stop turning off phones for non-payment of Internet bills. On October 30 last year, Sevzaptelecom filed a lawsuit with the Arbitration Court of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, in which it asked to recognize the order of TU MAP as unfounded. As a result, the order of officials from the TU MAP did not come into force at that time: according to the current legislation, it is frozen while the case is being considered.
Sevzaptelecom's October claim was denied. This was followed by an appeal and cassation, which did not lead to a positive result for Sevzaptelecom. The order of the TU MAP came into force in April this year.
As the press service of Sevzaptelecom reported, back in the spring, having lost the cassation, the company introduced a procedure according to which the telephone number of the debtor for “Internet on credit” is included in the debt notification list. If payment is not made after notification, the case is referred to court. In this case, the debtor’s number is not disconnected. This procedure applies to all types of Internet access from PTS - both by code 8-809 and by number 372-7272. As for the appearance of separate bills for the Internet and intercity, the company did not say when this might happen, citing the technical complexity of the issue.
It is curious that all the information regarding the outcome of the legal dispute between Sevzaptelecom and TU MAP appeared in the media only yesterday. However, the last court decision on this issue was made back in April. Sevzaptelecom's slowness is understandable. At the beginning of this year, the first deputy general director of the company, Igor Samylin, confidently stated that the monopolist owns 15% of the local Dial-up access market. According to Peterstar, now the entire St. Petersburg market for network access via modem can be estimated at $20 million per year. Thus, “Internet on credit” brought Sevzaptelecom about $3 million a year. After a company has lost its tool for extracting money from debtors, it may also lose income from Internet users; the latter will simply stop paying. Now the only way to get your money from a dishonest client is a lawsuit. Taking into account the overcrowding of the courts and the number of potential clients of “Internet on credit” (almost any phone owner), we can assume that the company will simply change the form of providing the service. “Perhaps the same services will be provided to a narrower circle of corporate clients. When working with legal entities, a service on credit is always great. As for “Internet on credit” for individuals, then, apparently, Sevzaptelecom will refuse it,” the financial commented on the situation Director of Peterstar Arthur Akopyan.
Despite everything, the press service of Sevzaptelecom reported that “Internet on credit” is still available to individuals and no one will now turn off the phone for non-payment of Internet bills.
BORIS GORLIN

Newspaper "Kommersant St. Petersburg" No. 142 dated 08/13/2002, p. 4

Phones will stop turning off