OREANDA-NEWS. September 18, 2012. The International Working Group on Roaming, formed upon an initiative of the antimonopoly bodies of Russia and Turkey, supported by Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan and the Ukraine, had a meeting as part of the Competition Day in Kazan. The meeting was chaired by Deputy Head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) Anatoly Golomolzin, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia. 

“Developing competition and increasing affordable roaming is an important factor of social and economic integration: it forms a familiar telecommunications environment for the customers, as in their “home” country”, which encourages subscribers’ loyalty and increases consumption of telecommunications services”, pointed out Anatoly Golomolzin, opening the meeting of the Working Group.

Inter-operator prices under a roaming agreement is a crucial factor for roaming pricing. According to the Deputy Head of FAS, these prices are not based on the actual costs and are highly excessive: the gross revenue for servicing visited subscribers reaches 85%.

Various approaches are applied to ensure the balance of interests between operators and subscribers on the international telecommunications markets: regulation of subscriber and inter-operator tariffs; adopting measures provided for by the antimonopoly law (investigating, issuing determinations); and undertaking measures towards developing market relations on the basis of competition.

In 2010 the antimonopoly bodies of the CIS members-states, through the Headquarters for Joint Investigations of Violations of the Antimonopoly Law at ICAP, analyzed the state of competition on the telecommunications market. Based on the analysis, the Headquarters prepared a Report proposing possible measures towards developing competition and conducting antimonopoly investigations of roaming services. The Report was presented to and approved by the Council the Heads of the Governments of the CIS member-states.

In the first six months 2010, the antimonopoly bodies of Kazakhstan and Russia started investigations on the markets of roaming services. The investigations were completed in October 2010; on the basis of the findings FAS found that “MTS” OJSC, “VympelCom” OJSC, and “MegaFon” OJSC abused their market dominance, while the Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan for Competition Protection arrived to the same conclusions with regard to “GSM Kazakhstan” LLP, “Kazakhtelecom” OJSC, “Mobile Telecom-Service” LLP, and “KaR-Tel” LLP.

Following up the outcome of the cases initiated by FAS Russia and the Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan for Competition Protection, the operators agreed to reduce the rates in inter-operator agreements between themselves and with other CIS operators. “As for the cases investigated by FAS, Russian operators reduced their rates in December 2010 by two - four times”, pointed out Anatoly Golomolzin. “In 2012 prices continue going down but without involvement of the antimonopoly bodies”.

After the rates for communications services in roaming were reduced significantly, cellular communication operators evaluated the advantages: the overall number of out-coming and incoming calls, and SMS-messages multiplied; data transfer traffic and duration of conversations and Internet-sessions in roaming increased. “The operators can now earn on the volume of services rather than excessive tariffs”, emphasized Deputy Head of FAS.

The problems of telecommunications with use of roaming in the CIS and the countries of Europe are regulated to a greater degree. For other regions, however, additional coordination of the efforts of the antimonopoly bodies is required.

Developing competition is a priority for the antimonopoly bodies, and if necessary - taking antimonopoly measures. FAS has signed Agreements (Memorandums) on Cooperation with around 40 antimonopoly authorities across the globe.

As a result of the meeting, the Working Group approved in general the Declaration on joint efforts towards developing competition, particularly, in the following areas:

- Using the best practices for inter-operator agreements and rates for the end-subscribers;

- Completing cross-country reviews of wholesale and retail prices for communications services with use of roaming in order to increase market transparency;

- Reducing billing units;

- Eliminating price differences for roaming communications services and international communications services;

- Providing possibility to subscribers to choose an operator that offers roaming services;

- Protecting subscribers from “shock accounts” (when a threshold account balance for communications services with use of roaming is reached, an operator must enquire whether a subscriber agrees to further receive the service).

By the end of September participants of the meeting will forward their proposals on refining the declaration provisions to Russia’s and Turkey’s competition authorities.

FAS believes that it is essential to create conditions for developing a favourable competitive environment and adopt measures stimulating further tariff reduction for communications services in roaming. Efforts of the Working Group should facilitate fair conditions for cooperation between operators under the roaming agreements.

“Our goal is to encourage operators to develop competition. The most efficient direction would be when operators themselves reduce the prices”, concluded Anatoly Golomolzin. “Such actions increase customer loyalty and this is the most effective measure of competition advocacy”.