The Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications decided to discuss amendments to the law “On Communications” with operators

This week, the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications will for the first time discuss with representatives of mobile operators amendments to the law “On Communications” initiated by the State Duma, RBC daily reports.

We will talk about the abolition of fees for incoming calls in intranet roaming, as well as the introduction of registration of cell phones to prevent their theft. The Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications supports both initiatives; operators see a lot of obstacles to their implementation.

As Deputy Minister of Communications and Mass Communications Naum Marder explained to the publication, there are two issues on the agenda of the meeting. The first concerns the initiative of the Chairman of the State Duma Committee on IT and Communications, Vladimir Gorbachev: he suggested making it so that a subscriber could register mobile phones with an operator without paying for it (currently there is no such practice).

Each GSM phone has a unique 15-digit number (IMEI), which is automatically determined by the operator when the device is connected to the network. With the help of registration, the deputy believes, the level of cell phone thefts will decrease. The second issue on the agenda of the board of the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications is the initiative to abolish fees for incoming calls in intranet roaming, proposed by deputy Maxim Korobov.

“The Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications supports the initiatives put forward by deputies. But we do not want a situation in which it would be impossible to comply with the legislatively established norms - this often happens when laws are not discussed in advance. Therefore, we would like to discuss with operators how to implement all proposals,” explains Naum Marder .

Representatives of the Big Three previously stated that they were not against introducing the practice of registering IMEI codes, however, according to them, there are a number of difficulties that impede the implementation of this initiative and the issue requires additional study. For example, operators point out that there is a “gray” market for phones with fake IMEIs that duplicate each other.

In addition, when blocking phones, the question arises of who will be responsible for the safety of the common IMEI database in order to avoid possible information leakage. This is more of a law enforcement function that cannot be performed by an operator.

As for the cancellation of fees for intranet roaming, operators say that they have to incur a number of additional costs compared to organizing a call to a subscriber in their home region. There is a danger that operators will have to increase basic tariffs, spreading the “roaming costs” within the country across all subscribers.

For example, as a representative of one of the Big Three companies told reporters, if you simply change tariffs, cellular operators will still incur increased costs for servicing the subscriber, and these costs will lead to an increase in the cost of communication services for all subscribers, including those who do not travel outside the home region network.

At the end of October 2010, the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) of Russia announced that it intended to fine the Big Three operators for inflated roaming prices. This was followed by FAS initiatives to introduce per-second roaming tariffs in the CIS and inform subscribers about a possible change in the payment system for communication services in roaming.

At the beginning of 2010, the FAS initiated an antimonopoly case against the Big Three Russian mobile operators due to inflated roaming prices. As a result, operators agreed to reduce prices for SMS in roaming in the CIS countries by one and a half to two times, and for mobile Internet services by 2.5-3 times.

In addition, by its decision, the FAS obliged operators to ensure timely information to subscribers about possible changes in the cost and terms of tariffs for services when the subscriber is in roaming.