Paging and telegraph will be excluded from the licensing system for types of communication and IP telephony will be added.

The State Duma Committee on Communications and IT, together with the Ministry of Digital Development, is working on the issue of optimizing the number of types of communication services that are subject to licensing. It is expected that the authorities will exclude outdated technologies, including paging and telegraph communications, but will add IP telephony to the list. It is with the help of this technology that most fraudulent and anonymous calls are now made. Telecom operators welcome the initiative, but fear that increased regulation could harm services that are popular with citizens.

The head of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, Communications and IT, Alexander Khinshtein, said at a press conference at the end of the year that the committee had begun to consider the issue of reducing the number of types of licenses in the field of communications. According to him, there are now 21 types (including postal services.— “Kommersant”), however, some, for example, for paging or telegraph communication (judging by the Roskomnadzor register, there are 23 licenses for telegraph communication services), have lost their relevance, although there are no licenses for such a popular type of communication as IP telephony. It would be logical to reduce the number of types of licenses to 7–8 of the most relevant ones, the deputy believes.

Mr. Khinshtein noted that the issue of reducing the types of communications licenses is also mentioned in the industry development strategy until 2035, approved by the government in November. The document, in particular, states that now licenses are issued not for a general type of service, but for services provided using a certain technology or on a certain scale of networks. At the same time, some actually existing communication services are not subject to direct regulatory regulation: for example, digital TV on the Internet, streaming services and voice communications over the Internet (IP telephony). It is necessary to review and optimize the licensing mechanism in the communications industry, the strategy notes.

The Ministry of Digital Development has already begun work to reduce the number of license types. Thus, in September, the ministry presented for discussion a draft government resolution, according to which paging services were excluded from the list of licensed ones (see Kommersant of September 6). The same document excludes a separate data license for the purpose of transmitting voice information. The authors of the initiative noted that technologically, the transmission of voice information in the network is now inextricably linked with the provision of communication services and does not require separate regulation. The document should come into force on September 1, 2024. The Ministry of Digital Development confirmed that they are “working on the issue of adjusting the types of licenses in the field of communications.”

Nowadays, companies providing IP telephony services receive licenses for data transmission, in particular voice signals, and for telephone services through public access. According to Kommersant’s interlocutor on the market, law enforcement agencies need to optimize the number of types of licenses and introduce a separate license for IP telephony: “Currently, most fraudulent calls, as well as anonymous calls to local phone numbers about false terrorist attacks, for example, occur using this technology when changing a number.” According to Roskomnadzor, by October 2023, the Antifraud system, to which all telecom operators are required by law to connect, tracked 527 million fraudulent calls from spoofed numbers.

Large operators generally welcome the regulators’ plans. “We support initiatives aimed at combating fraud. We are ready to participate in the development of the topic,” Rostelecom said. Tele2 also agrees with this: “The initiative is aimed at updating the types of licenses, combating fraud and substitution of numbers.”

MTS supports “reasonable optimization and reduction of the burden on business,” but emphasizes: “It is important to approach changes in regulation in the field of communications licensing carefully so that services that are popular with citizens do not suffer.” General Director of the telecom operator Comfortel Dmitry Petrov adds that “such proposals should take place in direct dialogue with the industry, so that market participants and legislators can find an understandable compromise and not discriminate against different market participants.”

Yulia Tishina, Alexey Zhabin