Telecommunication (market of Russia)

In the I quarter 2010 revenue of Rostelecom under RAS was reduced by 8.2% in comparison with January — March, 2009 to 14.1 billion rubles, the operator reported. This largest falling at least in five years, the analyst of Veles Capital Ilya Fedotov says. The reason — decline in income from telecommunication, traditional for it (in 2009 it provided 71.4% of revenue of Rostelecom). Traffic goes to networks of mobile operators, the employee of the press service of Rostelecom recognizes.

Till 2006 all operators were obliged to direct long-distance and trunk calls through network of Rostelecom, but then also other operators independently began to receive licenses for the right to render these services. Now their about 20, including MTS, VimpelCom and MegaFon.

First expansion of "the big three" was constrained by lack of trunk channels. They had to be rented at Rostelecom, MTT, Transtelecom, and calls left expensive. But in 2008 VimpelCom purchased Golden Telecom with a powerful cable network, and MTS and MegaFon began to build the networks.

As a result the mobile long-distance call and calls abroad noticeably fell in price. At VimpelCom in 2008 the average cost of minute of a conversation with the abroad fell in price from 16.5 to 5.5 rub, the analyst of iKS-Consulting Yulia Fedorova notices: the prices became comparable to rates of wire operators, but mobile communication is more convenient. Result: till 2006 the share of Rostelecom in the longhaul market exceeded 70%, now, according to Fedorova — 25.6%, and at mobile operators are 59%.

All of them use own trunk channels more actively. MTS transfers on the networks already over 70% of distant traffic, having saved on it in two years more than 2.5 billion rubles, the press secretary Irina Osadchaya says it. Rent costs of foreign channels were during this time reduced by 40%. Until the end of 2010 MTS is going to switch more than 90% of the voice distant traffic to own network, having saved about 1 more billion rubles in 2010-2011 VimpelCom in 2009 started up through the network 6 billion minutes of the international traffic — 28% more, than the previous year, the press secretary Anna Aybasheva says.

Rostelecom still the leader in a longhaul segment also makes "reasonable efforts" for reduction of migration of this traffic on the cellular transmission network, the representative Oleg Rumyantsev says it. But it is impossible to break this trend, he therefore the operator diversifies business with emphasis on highly profitable services — data transmission, Internet access, virtual private networks, etc. recognizes.

Lost a considerable share of MG / MN-trafika mobile operators and MTT, the CEO Eldar Razroyev recognizes it. It is possible to earn and in a different way, for example transferring Internet traffic, he notes, but calculates and on the fact that "the regulator will finish market liberalization" — will oblige the cellular companies to give to subscribers an opportunity of the choice of other longhaul operators. With such offer Razroyev addressed to Federal Antimonopoly Service recently.

It is necessary to study whether such choice is necessary to subscribers and whether it is possible to organize it technically, the official of FAS says.

Zone operators

The companies it seems Comstar-OTS and "subsidiaries" of Svyazinvest use the status of the zone operator — the intermediary between the longhaul operator and the subscriber — as the competitive struggle tool with independent operators of MG/MN of communication: overestimating rates for calls from MG/MN network by zone network, they make services of competitors less available. Comstar raised a tariff for such calls four times recently — to 2.8 rub in a minute. Comstar has both a MG/MN network, and final subscribers, and zone rates raise the price of communication for foreign users. Rostelecom, having attached interregional companies of Svyazinvest, will also cease to pay them for zone calls and will get additional competitive advantages, and operators like MTT, in fact, will be forced to subsidize the competitor.

According to the analyst of Gazprombank Anna Kurbatova, in 2009 longhaul Russian operators paid zone about 12 billion rubles. On average in Russia minute of a zone call costs about 0.7 rub, Razroyev says.

The payment for calls from longhaul networks on zone networks leads to unjustified overestimate of rates for services of an intercity and international telecommunication (MG/MN), said in Razroyev's letter addressed to the Minister of Economic Development Elvira Nabiullina and the Minister of Communications Igor Shchegolev sent in August, 2010. Without this payment rates for telecommunication in Russia would become 30-40% below, Razroyev considers.