Russia, Belarus to finally abolish roaming charges by late 2021 - Mezentsev
<p> MINSK, Apr 8 - PrimePress. Russia and Belarus should finally come to the abolition of roaming fees by the end of the year, Union State Secretary Dmitry Mezentsev told reporters on 8 April. </p> <p> </p> <p> “I understand that a decision to abolish roaming is expected in a special way. Today, the heads of the two ministries concerned have confirmed that the cost of interconnection has already been reduced by 20 times, the cost of the traffic itself - today it has already been reduced to three, to seven times,” Prime agency quoted Mezentsev as saying. </p> <p> </p> <p> “The work will continue, and by the end of the year we have to reach the cost, which is not quite different between calls within Belarus and Russia in terms of calls between one country and another,” he said. </p> <p> </p> <p> As previously reported, the parties have been in roaming abolition talks for a few years now. They first adopted a roadmap for the abolition of roaming in the Union State and a fraud prevention plan. The roadmap was approved by the telecom ministers of both countries in December 2019. The charges for incoming calls in roaming in the Union State was supposed to be abolished in or before September 2020. </p> <p> </p> <p> Belarusian and Russian telecom operators lowered on November 1, 2020 the interconnect rate from $0.3 to $0.015 per minute on a trial basis, which reduced manifold the telecommunication costs for their clients. End </p> <p> </p> <p> </p>
2021-04-09
Primepress
Russia, Belarus to finally abolish roaming charges by late 2021 - Mezentsev
MINSK, Apr 8 - PrimePress. Russia and Belarus should finally come to the abolition of roaming fees by the end of the year, Union State Secretary Dmitry Mezentsev told reporters on 8 April.
“I understand that a decision to abolish roaming is expected in a special way. Today, the heads of the two ministries concerned have confirmed that the cost of interconnection has already been reduced by 20 times, the cost of the traffic itself - today it has already been reduced to three, to seven times,” Prime agency quoted Mezentsev as saying.
“The work will continue, and by the end of the year we have to reach the cost, which is not quite different between calls within Belarus and Russia in terms of calls between one country and another,” he said.
As previously reported, the parties have been in roaming abolition talks for a few years now. They first adopted a roadmap for the abolition of roaming in the Union State and a fraud prevention plan. The roadmap was approved by the telecom ministers of both countries in December 2019. The charges for incoming calls in roaming in the Union State was supposed to be abolished in or before September 2020.
Belarusian and Russian telecom operators lowered on November 1, 2020 the interconnect rate from $0.3 to $0.015 per minute on a trial basis, which reduced manifold the telecommunication costs for their clients. End