Unfair competition in the provision of

During the rapid development of networks in zero years, many novice Internet providers competed by hook or by crook among themselves for a subscriber. The methods were different: from the “chernukha” on leaflets pasted on the entrances to the dangling cable and the stolen iron of a competitor. Over the years, the market has stabilized and, as usual in this struggle, some names remained afloat, while others have sunk into oblivion. Some providers were more fortunate and they were bought by major players. Others simply could not stand the onslaught of competitors and disappeared from the market. Now everything was a little different ...



The change in market conditions somewhat changed the position of forces, but the methods of unfair competition remained the same. Only the warring parties strikingly differ from each other in the scale of their capabilities. Now, often large federal telecom operators, acting from a position of strength, try to take subscribers from small companies or keep them out of their territory.



On our forum you can find many similar stories from telecom operators from all over Russia. As a rule, the scheme of work on weaning subscribers is as follows: first, subscribers of a competing provider are called and informed that their provider has gone bankrupt or is being driven out by the management company. Further in the course of ordinary vandalism. The competitor's cable is periodically cut causing subscribers to suffer. In parallel with this, representatives of the “aggressor provider” ring around or bypass the subscribers by the apartment, offering their services. In this case, the subscriber has no choice but to change the Internet provider.



Here are just a few quotes from our forum from representatives of alternative telecom operators:

“Good day to all! Situation: Rostelecom calls around subscribers of other Internet providers and offers its services. Calls are sent to mobile numbers, and the address of the subscriber’s residence is known to Rostelecom representatives: they offer Internet via dedicated lines to specific addresses. Callers not only advertise their services, but also indulge in criticizing the services of other providers. And they offer people tariffs that are not on the official regional site of Rostelecom. We are going together with other local providers to complain about this in the FAS. Has anyone come across a similar situation? What measures did you take? Any of your thoughts will be interesting and useful. Thank".

“They sometimes come with a contract in which the passport data and the address of the subscriber are entered, there is a seal and signature of the RT and cut off the cable of another provider, switch it into their equipment - they call the apartment and offer to sign the contract immediately. They reset the settings of the router and voila - the subscriber is already in RT. About the old provider, the speech is short - he went bankrupt and was a fraud, it’s good that you were at home right now - otherwise you would have to stand in the office to sign a contract. The leadership of the Republic of Tajikistan has the only answer - it’s not us - the contractors are like that and we don’t sign an agreement with them - all the questions to the high authorities ”.

“In our city, one major provider trades in the following way: first, calls are received by subscribers, can be presented by anyone, even to the receiving governor, and they tell fairy tales to subscribers, even to the flight of the founders of the connected operator abroad with assets. If the call didn’t give an effect, an apartment round of subscribers began, with the same bikes. After that, everything ended in a prosaic way - they simply cut the competitors' cable, and then they called the subscribers again and were interested in the quality of communication. ”

These are just a few examples from over a dozen similar stories. As long as the law enforcement agencies are dealing with all this, the subscriber changes the provider.



In one of the publications we have already written about how a company building networks in the Far East periodically uses the quadcopter to catch employees of major telecom operators during the damage of their property.









In Khabarovsk, vandals are caught using a quadrocopter.



All of the above was only a preface to the main point. A representative of a small provider “CityLine” from Tambov, just starting out as an Internet service provider, turned to us in the winter. However, a small company has already had to face the realities of the market, when large players, who consider themselves owners, simply do not take into account the interests and rights of competitors.



Tambov is a city with a population of just under three hundred thousand people. Internet providers here are less than a dozen, and the ball is ruled by the local provider Lanta and the federal Rostelecom and Green Dot. The latter, just one of the main characters of our story. It is important to know here that Green Dot is a major federal Internet provider operating in 16 major federal centers of Russia.



In January 2017, a letter from a certain company, Sistema Svyazi, LLC, came to the Cityline office, asking the provider to remove the fiber-optic cable from their supports. “Communication Systems” is an Internet provider. operating under the brand "Green Dot". The supports mentioned in the letter are located not far from the newly built high-rise buildings in the Sloboda neighborhood in Tambov.











On this offer, “CityLine” asked “Green Point” to send them documents that would confirm the fact of ownership and the legality of the installed supports. The federal operators sent the draft of the pylons, but the document did not have any confirmation of their legality from the city administration, and therefore it was not confirmed that they had ownership. According to the representative of “CityLine”, the document provided by “Green Dot” has no legal force at all. The poet in “CityLine” ignored the requirements of the “Green Point”. As a result, the federal operator set in motion completely different methods of struggle.



First of all, Green Dot distributed an announcement on the houses warning subscribers about the imminent dismantling of the "illegal" CitiLine cable.







Then the same cable was destroyed, which hung on supports and optics in residential buildings. After that, “Green Point” with the cable “CityLine” began to connect to the network subscribers who expressed their desire to go to them. In addition, in the aforementioned houses there was no provision for a cable exit from the attic to the communications mine and CityLine had drilled the necessary holes with its own forces and threw the cable. “Green Point” simply captured the pipe racks and the cable, connecting subscribers to it.

“They simply do not consider us as competitors and act from a position of strength”

- Considers one of the founders of “CityLine”.



In Cityline, they made an inspection report of the pipe posts with a cable, which was attended by a representative of a housing organization serving the houses that became the subject of a dispute, thereby confirming their legitimacy.







In this story, noteworthy is the fact that CityLine offered all sorts of methods for resolving the conflict, and even a system of mutual settlement, when Green Dot would use pipelines, and Cityline could instead place its cable on supports. However, “Green Dot” disregarded these proposals and continued to bend its line. Representatives of CityLine have already appealed to all instances except the court, but everywhere they were denied assistance. The recent meeting of representatives of CityLine and Green Dot, initiated by the administration of Tambov, did not affect the state of affairs.



As the head of the law firm “OrderCom”, Dmitry Galushko, told us, in this story, representatives of a large operator act in violation of the law, and the “younger brother”, in turn, needs to contact law enforcement agencies. Moreover, the actions to destroy the cable generally fall under the violation of criminal law.