DPR and LPR are establishing communication
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Until April 1, the Ministry of Digital Transformation and the government of the LPR will agree on the format for consolidating the assets of Lugansk Telephone Company LLC: it is expected that it will create a joint venture with Miranda Media (19.99% from Rostelecom). Sources of Kommersant say that according to a similar scheme, it is planned to consolidate the Phoenix operator in the DPR. Miranda-Media already offers services to local communication providers in the LPR to fulfill the requirements for data storage under the Yarovaya Law and traffic transmission through SORM. But experts note that the offered prices are too high for small private providers in the regions, given their own low tariffs.
A high-ranking source of Kommersant, close to the communication market of the LPR and DPR, said that until April 1, the Ministry of Digital Transformation, together with the government of the LPR, Rostelecom and Miranda Media, will determine the principles for creating and operating a single telecom operator in the region.
According to him, representatives of the LPR and Miranda-Media proposed to do this by consolidating the assets of Lugansk Telephone Company LLC as part of a joint venture with Miranda-Media.
According to Kommersant’s interlocutor, “probably, Miranda Media will gain control in the joint venture.”
According to a similar scheme, the Kommersant source says, it is planned to consolidate the Phoenix operator in the DPR. The head of the Ministry of Digital Development, Maksut Shadayev, said in March (quoted by TASS) that the option of consolidating the assets of two state-owned mobile operators in the LPR and DPR is being considered, “we hope that this will happen this year.”
According to SPARK-Interfax, LLC Miranda-Media was registered in 2004 in the Crimea. Revenue in 2021 amounted to RUB 1.8 billion. with a net profit of 239 million rubles. 19.99% belongs to Rostelecom, 80.001% belongs to the shipping company Luxtrans, the share is pledged by JSB Rossiya.
Miranda-Media is already preparing to provide SORM services in the LPR to local communication providers, follows from the commercial offer of the company signed by the director of the department for working with telecom operators Kalinin A.S., which Kommersant got acquainted with. Miranda Media offers to provide for 113 rubles. passing 1 Mbit / s Internet traffic, implementing the requirements of SORM and the Yarovaya Law (according to it, from July 1, 2018, telephone conversations, messages, images, sounds, and video recordings of users must be stored).
Local providers in the LPR began to receive such offers from the end of March, says a source familiar with the situation on the communications market in the region.
In March, it also became known that Miranda Media would start working in the DPR from May 1 (see “Kommersant” dated March 13).
Kommersant has at its disposal a copy of the minutes of the meeting, which was held at the Ministry of Digital Development on March 21 with the participation of representatives of the LPR government, Rostelecom and Miranda Media, on the development of communications in the region. It says that the local telecom operators ISS and MirTelecom (a structure of Miranda Media) must submit to the government a schedule for the construction of 920 base stations in the LPR by April 1.
The Ministry of Digital Development of the Russian Federation told Kommersant that they “do not confirm the information about holding such a meeting”, the ministry did not comment on the information about the creation of the JV Miranda-Media and the Lugansk telephone company. The press service of Rostelecom said that the company has no information about the meeting. The activities and plans of Miranda Media were not discussed there. Miranda Media declined to comment. The Ministry of Digital Development of the LPR did not answer “Kommersant”.
The entry of Miranda Media into the LPR and DPR in cooperation with local operators will actually lead to the emergence of a monopoly in the segment of backbone data transmission services, says Dmitry Galushko, general director of the consulting company Ordercom.
The fact is, he explains, that in September 2022 the government of the LPR adopted a resolution “On Unified Telecommunication Switching Nodes” (Kommersant has it), according to which all traffic, including voice traffic, goes through the node of the Lugansk Telephone Company. Similarly, according to Mr. Galushko, the passage of traffic to the DPR is arranged – the turn of the State Unitary Enterprise “Uglelelecom”. The Ministry of Digital Development of the DPR did not answer “Kommersant”.
A single telecom operator, through which all backbone traffic in the regions of the LPR and DPR will go, can set high tariffs, ousting small providers from the local market, which are now more than two hundred in two regions (in Donetsk, in particular, there are Dontelecom networks, ” Titan, Lugatela, Intertelecom and others), notes Dmitry Galushko. “There are now three or four providers in small towns, which allows you to keep the prices for wired Internet at a low level – an average of about 250 rubles. (in the Russian Federation at the end of 2022 – 376 rubles – “b”” he says. Against the background of such an average check, the expert believes, the proposed prices for SORM services and the implementation of the requirements of the “Yarovaya law” “look unbearable.”
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