Regulator gives Big Four mobile providers until year's end to cancel roaming in Russia
MOSCOW. Aug 22 (Interfax) - The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) has extended the deadline for mobile service providers to comply with a notice to eliminate roaming charges within Russia until December 15, 2017.
"Communications operators must provide a report to FAS monthly on progress in complying with the notice," the regulator said in a statement.
The FAS said the operators themselves requested the extension.
Earlier, the FAS gave just one operator, which was not named, more time to comply. Market sources said the operator in question was Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) , which has asked for an extension.
MegaFon , for its part, filed a suit against the FAS with the Moscow Arbitration Court, claiming that it would be impossible to meet the regulator's deadline, but it later withdrew the suit. A source close to the operator told Interfax that the company had also asked the FAS for more time to comply.
VimpelCom and Tele2 are not commenting on the situation.
The FAS issued its order for the Big Four to change tariffs for communication services when travelling within the country and eliminated unjustified price changes on July 14. The FAS gave the operators 14 days from receipt of the notice to change mobile plan terms, in other words until August 7 or 10.
The FAS said later that it might open cases against operators if they did not provide sufficient information that they had heeded the warnings. The FAS said it would only open cases against three operators as one of them had sent the FAS a reasoned request to extend the deadline for compliance and said it was prepared to comply by the new deadline.
The FAS also plans at the end of September to consider cases against Big Four operators for setting and maintaining high monopolistic national roaming charges.