FAS revealed the volume of overpayments from subscribers of Megafon, MTS and Beeline

Megafon charged the highest markup for Internet access for subscribers in Crimea – 2,200 rubles for 1 GB of mobile Internet, Vedomosti found out. MTS and Beeline added to their subscribers 1250 and 140 rubles per gigabyte per day, respectively. In addition to Internet traffic, operators’ subscribers also overpaid for minutes of outgoing calls and SMS messages.

At the end of October this year, the FAS found that the three big operators were violating antitrust laws by imposing additional roaming surcharges for Russians visiting Crimea and ordered them to end this practice.

Prior to this, in August 2024, the service opened cases against companies for non-compliance with previously issued warnings about the abolition of additional fees for subscribers in Crimea and Sevastopol. At the same time, the FAS clarified that T2 Mobile (Tele2) and VTB Mobile voluntarily waived margins after receiving instructions from the service.

After the FAS order in August 2024, VimpelCom agreed to voluntarily cancel the margin and bring tariffs to the level of the subscriber’s home region from January 1, 2025, the FAS press service reported with reference to progress of the case.

The law on the abolition of roaming on the territory of Russia (527-FZ of December 27, 2018) entered into force on June 1, 2019. One of the provisions of the document is the prohibition of charging different rates for incoming calls to a subscriber of any operator, regardless of the constituent entity of Russia where the subscriber is located.

Vedomosti noted that the existing margins of the Big Three are not due to roaming, but to payment for subscribers’ access to the networks of local operators K-Telecom, KTK-Telecom (Volna Mobile), Krymtelecom and Sevtelecom “