The Ministry of Communications will shake up the market of operators

I will remind that earlier Habr literally blew up a post "How to close the Internet in Russia" in which the nearest and long-term plans of the Ministry of Communications were communicated to the general public.
The ministry developed a thesis concept entitled “Development of public multi-service communication networks in the Russian Federation”, which presented, let's say, an interesting vision of market development and the future infrastructure of telecom operators.
Everything became terribly interesting (emphasize the necessary).
And therefore, the entire IT industry and a significant part of the Internet community were eagerly waiting for representatives of the Ministry of Communications to give detailed explanations on their vision of a “new marvelous world.” This happened on August 22 at a round table in the Analytical Center under the Government of the Russian Federation. I managed to attend this event, which, incidentally, turned out to be not so difficult - I just needed to know that it would be there and send a request for participation.



So, as expected, the round table was a full house, the program included as many as 55 names of participants, among which were alland representatives (tops) of the Big Five (Rostelecom, Transtelecom, MTS, Vimpelcom, Megafon) and market regulators (Roskomnadzor, FAS) and content managers (RAEC, Yandex) and top management of medium and small operators, analysts, lawyers, lawyers, MEDIA.
In a word, morning did not promise to be languid.

If you make a digression, then the main points that the market participants and the Internet community were worried about in advance of this meeting were:
1) the upcoming global redistribution of the market for telecom operators and their division into federal and ordinary (FOS and OS): (pictures are clickable) 2) increased market monopolization by the only (according to some estimates) federal operator;





3) an aggressive solution to the problem of high-speed “last mile” (or in another way to eliminate the digital divide) due to exorbitant imposed costs for small providers;
4) the concentration of market-governing leverage for future federal operators affiliated with government agencies;
5) an increase in the price of traffic due to all of the above, which as a result will affect the final price of the cost of Internet services for the subscriber;
6) Well, the most hotly discussed moment in the Internet environment is the transfer of cross-border traffic entirely to the hands of federal telecom operators.

And at the round table, the position of the Ministry of Communications was represented and defended by the Advisor to the Minister of Communications Eldar Razroyev and Deputy Minister Denis Sverdlov.

In order not to engage in self-citation, I recommend that you carefully read the reports, speeches and discussions, as well as the videos in the corresponding review on the NAG portal.

Here I will give the slides from the round table, which are still exclusive at the moment, a squeeze from the meeting and afterword / comments / reaction from other participants in the meeting.

So, Eldar Razroev presented the report "Abstracts of the concept of development of multiservice public communication networks of the Russian Federation":


( presentation )

And an analyst at Ernst & Young, Yuri Gedgrafov, clearly showed how the thesis concept of the ministry could affect the industry: “Regulation of multiservice networks: possible impact on market participants”:


( presentation )

Dry squeeze on a round table:
1) All market participants (and large operators too) are unhappy with the vision of the development of communication networks from the Ministry of Communications.
2) Regulators (Roskomnadzor and FAS) have many critical comments on the current development concept.
3) Suddenly - Rostelecom almost the toughest criticized the theses inherent in the concept.
4) When building a new principle of interaction, the old scheme also remains.
5) How long licenses will operate and renew under the old interaction scheme - no clear answer has been given.
6) Who now owns cross-border traffic - in the future it will not be taken away, but only if the operator does not choose a new interaction scheme.
7) There is no clear answer - whether it is necessary to pull over exactly “cable” to all cities of more than 100 thousand people (and in the future from 8 thousand), or “satellite” can be used.
8) The state will not invest in the infrastructure for the development and construction of communication networks, but will invest in demand by purchasing the excess capacity of newly built channels.
9) Estimates vary greatly in the number of future federal operators: someone claims that there will be clearly one FOS, someone talks about the "Big Five", and the Ministry of Communications insists that their number may well be about 10.
10) The same according to the cost of joining the WCF, according to various estimates, it will be in the range from $ 0 to 1 billion of the same evergreens.
11) The concept has a very tight deadline, there is no economic justification, there is little analytical study, such its implementation can negatively affect the entire economy of the country.
12) Contractors (Yandex, Google, MailRu, etc.) as significant beneficiaries from the development of communication networks are strongly recommended to participate in their construction.
13) The inevitable increase in the cost of services for the subscriber, as a result of the huge costs imposed by the state on operators for the future concept.

In a word, some explanations of the representatives of the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media cleared up some points, and some others were aggravated by a general misunderstanding.
But in fact - there is no holistic concept. The industry urges the Ministry of Communications to provide quality analytics and a well-developed program.

You can trace the reaction in the media after this meeting:

( link ) “What will the emergence of a federal Internet provider lead to?”
( link ) “Changes in Internet regulation in Russia have led the experts to a standstill”
( link ) “Parallel multiservice”
( link ) “The concept of the Ministry of Communications was criticized by the Documentary Telecommunications Association (ADE)”
( link ) “The deadline for closing the border for Internet providers has not been set "
( Link )" The concept is in the bag "
( link )" Business is afraid of multiservice networks "

Also interesting is the fact that the Minister of Communications Nikiforov has never commented on either the concept itself or the reaction of the industry and the public to it.

But one of the developers of the concept, Eldar Razroev, gave explanations after the reaction went online according to his report.
Those who have a Facebook account can take advantage of the offer of the Minister’s Advisor :
“I answer the same questions several times. To be honest, tired. I propose to do it “on my wall”, so as not to repeat itself. Ask a question - I answer. Only pzh without lyrics, and as laconic as possible. ”
The FB also develops 2 interesting discussion threads on the topic with participants - “heavyweights” of the industry, where you can fit in and offer your theses and comments to prominent players and regulators of the communications market: ONCE and TWO .

In a word, the discussion and discussion are continuing, and we are all waiting for the detailed analytics and the roadmap promised by the Ministry of Communications.