OREANDA-NEWS. December 14, 2010. Tattelecom plans to make a suggestion to Tatar mobile operators that the rate on network interconnection be halved from the current RUB 0.95 per minute, the company CFO, Rustem Yusupov said. “The domestic network connection rate at all of regional mobile operators averages RUB 0.50, and the figure should not be higher for fixed-line operators either”, he believes.

The operator’s initiative was preceded by an antimonopoly proceeding, not against Tattelecom, but against mobile operators, the Big 3, MTS, VimpelCom, Megafon, and regional operators, SMARTS and NSS. A complaint was lodged to the Tatarstan FAS on 4 December 2009 by a public organization named Consumer Rights Protection. The local FAS forwarded the complaint to the head office. According to activists, the cost of a 1-minute call from fixed to mobile number in Tatarstan, which now equals RUB 1.5 per minutes, is grossly overstated.

The regional rate on calls between fixed-line subscribers is RUB 0.23 per minute, and the tariff on calls between mobile numbers is RUB 0.3 per minute. At the same time, the rate on calls from mobile to fixed-line numbers is RUB 1.5 per minute, though the respective networks differ substantially by subscriber numbers. The FAS believes the cost of such inter-network calls should not exceed RUB 0.565 per minute.