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Russia and Belarus cancel roaming charges for incoming calls
On April 1, 2022, Russia and Belarus cancelled incoming call charges. The decision was made on March 23 at a meeting of the High-Level Group under the Union State Council of Ministers, the Ministry of Digital Development reported.
“The cancellation of roaming charges for incoming calls on the territory of the Union State helps to strengthen the partnership and integration of the two countries, as agreed upon by the heads of the states – Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko. A lot of preparatory work has been done by the relevant ministries and mobile operators. This allows Russians staying in Belarus to receive calls from their relatives for free. Similar terms will apply to Belarusian subscribers in Russia. And it is very symbolic that this decision comes into force on the eve of the Day of Unity of Our Peoples, which is celebrated annually on April 2,” said Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko.
“The cancellation of incoming call charges is one of the results of negotiations between the relevant ministries and telecom operators of the Union State. Now there are over 90 thousand Russian subscribers in Belarus, who will be able to enjoy free incoming calls. The Ministry of Digital Development thanks the operators for the fact that the comfort of subscribers and the communication services availability remains their main priority at any time. We are now continuing our work with the Republic to cancel all roaming charges in the near future. Then the cost of incoming and outgoing calls for citizens moving between the countries will be equal to the cost of communication within their country,” said Dmitry Kim, Deputy Head of the Ministry of Digital Development of Russia.
The joint work made it possible back in November 2020 to reduce the Russia/Belarus interconnect rate (a system of inter-operator settlements for voice traffic services) for roaming calls from $0.30 to $0.015. Due to the reduction of roaming charges, the number of subscribers of Russian telecom operators using cellular services in Belarus increased by 15%, while the number of incoming calls and outgoing calls increased by 1.5 and 2 times, respectively. The number of text messages doubled, and the Internet traffic grew by 1.6 times.