OREANDA-NEWS. September 03, 2012. The Antimonopoly Service punished “Rostelecom” OJSC for fixing different prices in the Russian Federation for providing abbreviated numbers to organizations, which formed emergency operational services, in order to ensure possibilities to call emergency operational services, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia. 

On 27th August 2012, the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) found that “Rostelecom” OJSC violated Part 1Article 10 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition”.

Earlier FAS initiated a case upon a petition of “Tveroblgaz” OJSC that “Rostelecom” OJSC had fixed excessive prices for providing abbreviated numbers to emergency operational services.

The FAS Commission revealed that telecommunications operators compensated expenses incurred by providing possibilities to call emergency operational services on the basis of contracts concluded with the bodies and organizations that formed relevant services.

In different constituent territories of the Russian Federation the tariffs for providing abbreviated numbers for emergency operational services are different. In the Tver region the tariff is fixed at 1500 Rubles per month; while in other provinces tariffs are much lower. For instance, the tariff in the Kursk region is 460 Rubles.

“Rostelecom” OJSC was unable to give economic or technological justification of fixing different services in the Russian Federation for providing abbreviated numbers to organizations that formed emergency operational services. FAS will instruct “Rostelecom” OJSC to reduce the excessive tariffs fixed in some regions, to a level that does not enable technologically or economically unjustified differences.