Business trips will cost Tele2 subscribers a little more / E. Kuzmina / Vedomosti

The Big Three operators - MTS , Megafon and VimpelCom - do not plan to change prices for services in Russia yet, their representatives say. Megafon and VimpelCom have raised tariffs in recent months, but only in foreign roaming.

From February 27, T2 RTK Holding, a joint venture between Rostelecom and Tele2 Russia operating under the Tele2 brand, is raising prices for domestic roaming: the cost of incoming and outgoing calls within the network when the subscriber is outside the home region will increase from 1.5 to 2 rubles per minute, the operator's website says. Sending SMS from such a region will increase in price from 1.5 to 2.5 rubles. At the same time, outgoing and incoming calls in foreign roaming will increase in price - in the CIS, Europe and the Baltics: the cost of a minute of conversation will increase from 9.45 to 15 rubles.

Expensive postponement

Bank Rossiya, one of the co-owners of Tele2, raised the rate on the 5 billion ruble loan issued to the operator's subsidiary, Saint Petersburg Telecom, from 9.25 to 20% per annum. At the same time, the bank extended the loan for nine months, until November 2015. Initially, the loan was due for repayment on February 11.

Konstantin Prokshin, a representative of T2 RTK Holding, does not specify what influenced the decision to increase roaming prices in Russia, but says that the activities of this operator as a major market participant are influenced by many economic processes. Nevertheless, the company continues to strictly follow the strategy of a cellular discounter, he adds. Its tariffs will still remain below the market average, agrees Denis Kuskov, CEO of the information and analytical agency Telecom Daily.

By the end of this year, T2 RTK Holding promises to launch a network in Moscow, where, for example, VimpelCom earns about 40% of all Russian revenue. And in total, in 2015-2018, the operator will spend "billions of dollars" on building networks in different regions, said Alexander Provotorov, Deputy CEO of T2 RTK Holding, in November 2014. Later, he did not rule out revising construction plans due to the devaluation of the ruble. All operators mainly purchase foreign equipment, the cost of which is tied to foreign currency - however, T2 RTK Holding managed to pay for some of the equipment needed for construction in advance.

The Big Three competitors do not have such large-scale investment programs planned, but T2 RTK Holding is also unlikely to raise prices in connection with the upcoming capital investments, Kuskov believes. The additional income that the company will receive from raising tariffs in Russian roaming is a drop in the ocean compared to the cost of construction in Moscow, agrees Mikhail Alekseev, Managing Partner of AC&M-Consulting. Rather, the issue lies with T2 RTK Holding's roaming partners, he believes: in some regions, they could raise the fee for connecting to their networks. Maxim Savvatin, an analyst at iKS-Consulting, shares this opinion: T2 RTK Holding does not have the same territorial coverage as its competitors. Therefore, T2 RTK Holding is highly dependent on the prices set by its partner operators. Representatives of MTS and VimpelCom claim that their companies have not raised interconnect prices. Megafon representative Aliya Beketova declined to comment.

The increase in prices for intercity roaming is not critical and does not attract close attention from the Federal Antimonopoly Service, says its deputy head Anatoly Golomolzin. Another matter is the increase in tariffs for foreign roaming - there are more questions about it, he adds.

Tele2 will be the first of the major Russian operators to raise tariffs within Russia