Russian ministry drafts provision to legalize telephone services by Internet providers
MOSCOW. Feb 19 (Interfax) - Russia's Communications Ministry has published a draft government resolution that would legalize carrying voice traffic on data networks.
The resolution would give many Internet providers access to the local telephony market, market players said.
According to the draft resolution, changes would be made to rules for connection of telecom networks and rules for providing data services. Landline telephone operators and operators of data networks would assume mutual obligations to carry voice traffic on one another's networks.
An important change concerns lifting the current restriction in rules for providing data services on giving IP telephony operators numbers from the number pool resource of the geographically determined or not geographically determined numbering zone. If the resolution is approved, Internet providers will be able to offer their customers local services with regular 10 or 11 digit numbers.
The activities of IP telephony operators are expected to be restricted to the boundaries of a Russian region.
Such operators will have to create points of interconnection in each municipality where they provide broadband access services or in every administrative center of the Russian region where the telecom network operates.
Domestic and international long-distance operators will be obligated to carry voice traffic between the public networks of foreign nations and the networks of Internet providers, as well as between telephone networks and data networks operating in various regions of Russia.
Fixed broadband operators already essentially often provide IP telephony services to their customers, but the market operates in a gray zone, since current legislation does not provide for carrying voice traffic from the Internet to landline telephone networks.
The legalization of carrying voice traffic through fixed broadband networks will allow the more than 10,000 Internet providers currently registered to also become local telephone operators, an expert at a major telecom operator told Interfax.
Demand for local phone services from broadband operators could arise when putting together more attractive price offers or in markets that are not saturated with fixed telecom services. While before Internet providers offered a standard bundle consisting of Internet access and digital TV services, now they will all be able to add IP telephony services to the bundles they offer, a telecom market expert said.
He said that IP telephony operators' access to the telephone number pool will be an important factor. The possibility of introducing number portability on landline networks is now being discussed and the initiative has been put on the government's agenda. If this proposal becomes a reality, Internet providers will be able to draw away fixed telephony customers who have been tied to their phone numbers, such as B2B and B2G clients.
However, when legalizing the IP telephony market it is necessary to protect the market from potential fraud, as it is more difficult to control voice traffic on Internet channels, operators believe.
"When preparing the regulatory framework for the legalization of carrying voice traffic through data networks it's important to provide for mechanisms to protect from unscrupulous actions by IP telephony operators to carry international and intercity traffic veiled as local service," the head of government relations at mobile operator MegaFon , Dmitry Petrov said. He said operators are prepared to submit their proposals in this regard.
The draft resolution proposed by the Communications Ministry would also change rules for carrying traffic between the networks of telephone service providers. It would allow establishing connections between local and long-distance networks.
At present, local networks in various municipalities and zonal networks in different regions of Russia are supposed to connect through zonal and domestic/international long-distance networks, respectively, even when nodes are located right next to one another. Long-distance and mobile operators with the technological ability to establish a direct connection to local telephone networks are forced to use the services of zonal networks. In these cases, additional nodes that are not technically required are used to establish connections.
