FAS ordered MTS to reduce tariffs

The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) found MTS guilty of violating the law due to an unreasonable increase in the cost of services. According to the FAS, the mobile operator must reduce tariffs “to an economically justified level,” according to the press release regulator. The MTS said that they have not yet received an official order from the FAS.

According to the FAS, in January MTS increased the cost of cellular services for more than 28 million subscribers by an average of 9.5%. The company justified this by increasing its costs. FAS clarifies that MTS did not provide “confirmation of the increase in costs in an amount sufficient to justify the increase in tariffs.”

In August, MTS again increased the cost of part of the tariffs by an average of 8.4%. The operator again increased the remaining tariffs in September and October by an average of 9.7%. “Thus, the total increase in tariffs for 28 million subscribers in 2022 amounted to more than 20%, while the consumer price index was 10.5% as of the end of August,” the FAS states.

MTS promised to study the arguments of the FAS after receiving the official text of the decision. “When adjusting tariffs, we took into account the growth in costs for maintaining the telecom infrastructure, which exceeds the growth in income from the provision of communication services. The necessary confirmation of this was presented to the commission,” the press service of the company said.

In TelecomDaily predictthat by the end of 2022, the growth in prices for mobile and broadband services will be 15-18%. Representatives of the operators said that the already held price increases ranged from 2% to 15%, but argue that the increase in any case does not exceed inflation. After the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, the basic services of foreign roaming from Russian telecom operators rose by 5-40%, the cost of options – by 40-60%.

Details – in the publication “Kommersant” “Communication with foreign countries will be expensive”.

Laura Keffer