MegaFon Must Offer Lower Fee to Minor Operators by Saturday

MOSCOW, Nov 23 (Prime-Tass) -- Russia's third largest mobile operator MegaFon must send minor mobile operators an offer by Saturday to set tariffs for interconnection at a level lower than the current one, the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) said in a statement Thursday.

The FAS said that MegaFon had to offer minor operators the same tariff that had been offered by MTS and VimpelCom.

The regulator initiated an antimonopoly case against the three operators in August. The FAS' probe into the mobile operators? operations found that the companies had agreed to set an inter-operator fee of 0.95 rubles per minute for incoming calls among themselves, while charging other operators 1.1 rubles per minute, the FAS said earlier. The move would force smaller mobile operators to overhaul their tariffs and forgo cheaper tariff plans, the regulator said, adding that the pricing violated the country's competition law.

In October, the regulator found the three companies guilty of violating antitrust legislation, but the case against VimpelCom and MTS was immediately closed as the two companies agreed to reduce the fee for minor operators to 0.95 rubles per minute.

(26.6122 rubles - U.S. $1)

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Posted to the site on 23rd November 2006