Meteorite crash in Urals disrupts Megafon network
MOSCOW. Feb 15 (Interfax) - A meteorite that crashed into Chelyabinsk Region Friday morning has caused difficulties maintaining mobile phone communications and has caused some disruptions in the operations of mobile service provider Megafon, the Communications & IT Oversight Service (Roskomnadzor) said on its website.
"The procedure of turning on emergency internetwork roaming has now been activated in the region. Subscribers of OJSC Megafon who have been left without service will be able to use the services of other operators. The rate plan in emergency roaming does not change for subscribers," the regulator said.
"Difficulties in providing mobile communications services have been seen in a number of districts of Chelyabinsk and Chelyabinsk Region. Teams of technicians are on a priority basis doing the necessary work to improve service for subscribers amid heavier network traffic," Megafon's press service confirmed.
"We are beginning to open up roaming for Megafon subscribers in accordance with the provision for emergency roaming developed on the initiative of Roskomnadzor," the spokesperson for mobile operator Vimpelcom , Anna Aibasheva said.
She said Vimpelcom's own network has operated normally, although the traffic load on the network increased dramatically.
MTS, Russia's other top-three mobile provider, said it opened up emergency roaming to Megafon customers in Chelyabinsk Region at 10:00 a.m. Moscow time.
"MTS equipment was not damaged, the network is operating normally, the burden on the network increased sharply, by 8-10 times, due to a large number of simultaneous calls. We are doing what we can to quickly expand network capacity," company spokesman Dmitry Solodovnikov said.
Roskomnadzor has asked mobile subscribers in Chelyabinsk Region not to make voice calls unless absolutely necessary in order to avoid overloading the operators who have turned on internetwork emergency roaming.
The regulator said that the situation with provision of communications services in the region has now generally stabilized. "No disruptions were found in landline communication broadband Internet access networks," Roskomnadzor said in its press release.
In 2012, Roskomnadzor instructed communications companies to develop a standard regulation for cooperation in the even of an emergency, including criteria for turning on technical roaming. An active discussion of roaming followed a number of emergency situations, including flooding in Krymsk, when operators had to resort to internetwork roaming.