The law "On Communication" can be corrected "substantially"

Deputy Maxim Korobov is preparing a draft amendment to the Law on Communication, which he intends to submit to the State Duma for consideration in September, Prime-TASS reported.

According to Vitaly Slizen, assistant deputy, the amendments relate to Article 2 of the law. The article defines operators that occupy a significant position in public networks. Korobov proposes to extend the possibility of recognizing the operator essential to all participants in the telecom market. This means that among the first contenders for such recognition will be the Big Three operators - MTS, VimpelCom, Megafon.
Under article 2, essential operators must keep separate records of their income and expenses. Their tariffs for interconnection and traffic transmission (inter-operator settlements) are regulated by the state. Essential operators do not have the right to refuse other market participants to join their network.

Now only large fixed-line operators are recognized as de facto significant.
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Vitaly Sluzen noted that the separate accounting of income and expenses allows, in particular, to establish the cost of a call from mobile to mobile or from fixed to mobile phone.

However, at present, mobile operators either do not keep such records, or simply do not disclose its results. If the concept of a “significant operator” is extended to MTS, VimpelCom and Megafon, this will oblige the company to prepare relevant reports. The antimonopoly service, in turn, will be able to understand whether there are grounds for increasing the cost of the first minute of a conversation.

Commenting on the introduction of various inter-operator tariffs by mobile operators of the Big Three, Sluzhen noted that the Federal Antimonopoly Service "had initiated a case on infringement of the rights of small cellular operators," because, according to Article 19 of the Law on Communications, operators must establish inter-operator tariffs within one subject of the Federation.