Cancel roaming. Nuances and problems
Recently, the FAS ordered the operators to cancel roaming, and gave 2 weeks to this case. The operators went nuts and did nothing , respectively, the HYIP erupted over what they were byaki. And, in general, the operators are not white and not fluffy, but still not as bad as can be considered.
In this article I want to explain what the problems are, and why 2 weeks is a populist hitting and not a real desire to solve the problem globally.
To begin with, we will define the types of roaming. For with terminology, all are full of seams, and among journalists, who are constantly raped by scientists from both FAS and readers. Roaming is very different.
Further, for definiteness, I will assume that they are still going to cancel intranet roaming, as the strangest of the existing ones.
Just want to make a reference to Europe and America, where there is no roaming, and everyone loves to poke in that direction. But we must not forget that communication is much, much more expensive there. You can say that there and the level of salaries is higher. This is true, but operators buy equipment for the same money as in Russia, in Germany, in the USA (maybe even more expensive). And this is a very serious item of expenditure, which does not depend on the level of salaries of users of operators.
In addition, in Europe, roaming was canceled not immediately, in one day, but for a long time and systematically prepared. They wrote laws, gradually limited the maximum amount for roaming, allowed operators to prepare, and only a few years later, canceled it.
In Russia, it’s not the government that spoke about the abolition of roaming, but the FAS, which does not issue laws, does not prescribe the rules, but simply punishes for what it considered wrong. And in fact, it would be necessary to start changing the legislation first, and only then cancel the roaming (although the operators themselves will cancel it if there are no obstacles). And the obstacles are as follows:
In fact, when you call long distance or roaming, your calls go through a separate trunk operator. Which in most cases is Rostelecom. There may still be MTT, or someone else, but he will get his own penny. And then he will build the best search engine with this money. How much money operators pay for it is unknown. But I think that the amounts are decent. In addition, according to unconfirmed rumors, sometimes it all comes down to the fact that the operators themselves miss calls, but pay a tax to Rostelecom, because it is necessary.
Actually, most license plates are tied to a specific region. You can look at the MTT website. What leads to? Moreover, even if you and your phone went to live in a different region, it is still listed in the old region, and calls will go to the operator’s router in that region, and then redirected to the desired one. I will write about routing below. This, incidentally, was one of the pitfalls in the implementation of MNP, which so far was decided that it was only possible to transfer to another operator in the same region.
Operators receive licenses not for the country, but for each region separately, buy other operators, so in fact it turns out that two different regions are served by different legal entities. That also does not contribute to the transparency of migration. Now there is a tendency to consolidation, but everyone probably remembers the car of different personal offices with different functionalities in different regions. The megaphone even had a magical service - enter the phone number, and we guess what personal account you need to go to.
As I already wrote, the equipment in different regions of the operators is different, there is a decent zoo, which is not very conducive to coordination. Now they are gradually enlarging, but this has side effects that a failure in a large data center leads to a global connection collapse in several areas. A few months ago, MegaFon happened exactly like that. According to the official version, the problem was related to the fact that the place on the SSD-drives in the data centers ran out, the subscriber data fell on the HDD, this resulted in timeouts and everything fell. Naturally, in the nearest store you cannot buy a couple of SSDs to add cache, and the problem turned out to be very serious.
Let's think about the meaning of cancellation. If you pay the operator enough money, you already have no roaming, this problem does not concern you. The problem is only for those who pay little or are sitting on tariffs without a monthly fee. Accordingly, the operator does not receive money from these users, but spends on maintaining the network, and will have to spend even more without getting anything in return. At the same time, according to reports, 9% of subscribers travel to other regions, and some of them do not pay for roaming anyway. Is the problem worth such a zealous decision?
Well, the answer is obvious - we, the subscribers. Even if we assume that the operators will not raise tariffs, but simply reduce their profits, they will cut costs along with the profits. For example, on the development of the network. What will not be noticeable instantly, but over time will lead to a deterioration in the quality of communication.
Now we will think about which operators have options for roaming cancellation. What can they do to make everyone happy, and no one left offended.
For a start, let's decide what we are deciding. Calls can be:
Now take all these options and mentally tick where it should be expensive, and where it is cheap or free. And who pays for the call. Are you, or the one who calls you? Mezhgorod something like yet not cancel. Someone has to pay.
Let's talk a little more about routing in telephone networks. It is generally simple and oak. Very similar to routing on the Internet, when routes are selected by network masks. Only here, as the network masks, the first digits of the number are used (remember the regional binding). And if you are roaming, and they call you, where will the call go? Of course, your home operator, and he will already send where necessary.
This, by the way, was one of the problems of MNP, i.e. how to make calls to be addressed where necessary, and it was not very expensive. Actually, therefore the transfer takes 7 days. That all had time to update the database and register routes. Right there in roaming we want to do everything “instantly”.
So, what are the solutions:
The most obvious option, solves many problems, but will lead to the fact that prices will even out on average. And if now Moscow pays for everyone, now everyone will pay the same amount. Those. in Moscow, prices will fall, and in the village Gadyukino grow. Not a good option, especially if we recall the level of wages.
Those. tariffs should be called the same, but the conditions and prices in each region are different. When moving to another region - to change the conditions. There are a lot of nuances. For example, in your give 300 minutes, and 200 you spoke. And in the other - 100. How many minutes will you have when moving to another region? Well, again, not a very good option, because one must either introduce a set of tariffs or some region will get a perverse set of conditions.
Guess what conditions he will have ...
They are still there, but FAS does not like the solution to this problem.
There will be a massive overflow of sims from cheap regions to expensive ones. To solve this problem, you can issue a SIM card only on a passport with a registration in the same region. So if you lost your phone on a trip, in the cabin of the operator you can be patted on the shoulder in a friendly way and sent home. When a region is changed, it is possible to count the subscriber as a resident of this region and to connect a suitable tariff to it. And if someone calls him from his native city, let him pay for intercity, the subscriber is already in another region! Very comfortably. It is possible after 30 days, but again, this generally only postpones the problem for a certain period, but does not solve it.
Let's remember how much MNP was administered. Do you think these operators were against? This is our government could not write the rules how everything should work. Who will route the calls, what to do with the intranet, which are no longer intranet, what to do with other regions, fixed phones? In the end, clear and explicit terms were written and it all worked. Why not do the same in this case. Prescribe all the details, discuss with the operators what is stopping them, develop common rules and gradually cancel roaming?
Roaming is bad, but it should be canceled with the mind, not a cavalry assault. Then everything will be fine and logical. Now the situation of the species - you do something, and we will see and decide whether it suits us, or you still need to be fined, which will not lead to anything good. And we will pay for all this, subscribers.
In this article I want to explain what the problems are, and why 2 weeks is a populist hitting and not a real desire to solve the problem globally.
To begin with, we will define the types of roaming. For with terminology, all are full of seams, and among journalists, who are constantly raped by scientists from both FAS and readers. Roaming is very different.
- Intranet. It is his most likely offer to cancel. This is a kind of roaming,
when you are in a different region, but in the network of the same operator. - National. A lot of statements that it is going to cancel it. But this type of roaming means that you are in your own country, but in the network of another operator. And in general, to cancel it is very, very strange. For its cancellation will most of all hit small operators who do not have networks in other areas, and it will be necessary to pay for it.
- International. Everything is clear, roaming in another country. It is not planned to cancel
Further, for definiteness, I will assume that they are still going to cancel intranet roaming, as the strangest of the existing ones.
Europe and America
Just want to make a reference to Europe and America, where there is no roaming, and everyone loves to poke in that direction. But we must not forget that communication is much, much more expensive there. You can say that there and the level of salaries is higher. This is true, but operators buy equipment for the same money as in Russia, in Germany, in the USA (maybe even more expensive). And this is a very serious item of expenditure, which does not depend on the level of salaries of users of operators.
In addition, in Europe, roaming was canceled not immediately, in one day, but for a long time and systematically prepared. They wrote laws, gradually limited the maximum amount for roaming, allowed operators to prepare, and only a few years later, canceled it.
What is in Russia?
In Russia, it’s not the government that spoke about the abolition of roaming, but the FAS, which does not issue laws, does not prescribe the rules, but simply punishes for what it considered wrong. And in fact, it would be necessary to start changing the legislation first, and only then cancel the roaming (although the operators themselves will cancel it if there are no obstacles). And the obstacles are as follows:
Mandatory landing calls to highways
In fact, when you call long distance or roaming, your calls go through a separate trunk operator. Which in most cases is Rostelecom. There may still be MTT, or someone else, but he will get his own penny. And then he will build the best search engine with this money. How much money operators pay for it is unknown. But I think that the amounts are decent. In addition, according to unconfirmed rumors, sometimes it all comes down to the fact that the operators themselves miss calls, but pay a tax to Rostelecom, because it is necessary.
Regional binding of telephone capacities
Actually, most license plates are tied to a specific region. You can look at the MTT website. What leads to? Moreover, even if you and your phone went to live in a different region, it is still listed in the old region, and calls will go to the operator’s router in that region, and then redirected to the desired one. I will write about routing below. This, incidentally, was one of the pitfalls in the implementation of MNP, which so far was decided that it was only possible to transfer to another operator in the same region.
Licensing
Operators receive licenses not for the country, but for each region separately, buy other operators, so in fact it turns out that two different regions are served by different legal entities. That also does not contribute to the transparency of migration. Now there is a tendency to consolidation, but everyone probably remembers the car of different personal offices with different functionalities in different regions. The megaphone even had a magical service - enter the phone number, and we guess what personal account you need to go to.
Technical problems
As I already wrote, the equipment in different regions of the operators is different, there is a decent zoo, which is not very conducive to coordination. Now they are gradually enlarging, but this has side effects that a failure in a large data center leads to a global connection collapse in several areas. A few months ago, MegaFon happened exactly like that. According to the official version, the problem was related to the fact that the place on the SSD-drives in the data centers ran out, the subscriber data fell on the HDD, this resulted in timeouts and everything fell. Naturally, in the nearest store you cannot buy a couple of SSDs to add cache, and the problem turned out to be very serious.
Reasonable cancellation
Let's think about the meaning of cancellation. If you pay the operator enough money, you already have no roaming, this problem does not concern you. The problem is only for those who pay little or are sitting on tariffs without a monthly fee. Accordingly, the operator does not receive money from these users, but spends on maintaining the network, and will have to spend even more without getting anything in return. At the same time, according to reports, 9% of subscribers travel to other regions, and some of them do not pay for roaming anyway. Is the problem worth such a zealous decision?
Who will pay for everything?
Well, the answer is obvious - we, the subscribers. Even if we assume that the operators will not raise tariffs, but simply reduce their profits, they will cut costs along with the profits. For example, on the development of the network. What will not be noticeable instantly, but over time will lead to a deterioration in the quality of communication.
Roaming Cancellation Options
Now we will think about which operators have options for roaming cancellation. What can they do to make everyone happy, and no one left offended.
For a start, let's decide what we are deciding. Calls can be:
- You are roaming and call home. The most logical scenario - came to another city, saying that everything is fine.
- You are roaming and calling in this region. For example, find out how to get there.
- You are roaming and you get a call from home.
- You are roaming and you are called from this region.
- You are roaming with a friend, i.e. he too And call him.
- You are roaming with a friend, i.e. he too And call him and you have different operators.
Now take all these options and mentally tick where it should be expensive, and where it is cheap or free. And who pays for the call. Are you, or the one who calls you? Mezhgorod something like yet not cancel. Someone has to pay.
Let's talk a little more about routing in telephone networks. It is generally simple and oak. Very similar to routing on the Internet, when routes are selected by network masks. Only here, as the network masks, the first digits of the number are used (remember the regional binding). And if you are roaming, and they call you, where will the call go? Of course, your home operator, and he will already send where necessary.
This, by the way, was one of the problems of MNP, i.e. how to make calls to be addressed where necessary, and it was not very expensive. Actually, therefore the transfer takes 7 days. That all had time to update the database and register routes. Right there in roaming we want to do everything “instantly”.
So, what are the solutions:
Introduction of identical tariffs throughout the country
The most obvious option, solves many problems, but will lead to the fact that prices will even out on average. And if now Moscow pays for everyone, now everyone will pay the same amount. Those. in Moscow, prices will fall, and in the village Gadyukino grow. Not a good option, especially if we recall the level of wages.
Make a single tariff grid throughout the country, but with different conditions
Those. tariffs should be called the same, but the conditions and prices in each region are different. When moving to another region - to change the conditions. There are a lot of nuances. For example, in your give 300 minutes, and 200 you spoke. And in the other - 100. How many minutes will you have when moving to another region? Well, again, not a very good option, because one must either introduce a set of tariffs or some region will get a perverse set of conditions.
Make one special rate for other areas and switch to it.
Guess what conditions he will have ...
Make special roaming rates with the same prices.
They are still there, but FAS does not like the solution to this problem.
Leave as is, but just do not take money for roaming
There will be a massive overflow of sims from cheap regions to expensive ones. To solve this problem, you can issue a SIM card only on a passport with a registration in the same region. So if you lost your phone on a trip, in the cabin of the operator you can be patted on the shoulder in a friendly way and sent home. When a region is changed, it is possible to count the subscriber as a resident of this region and to connect a suitable tariff to it. And if someone calls him from his native city, let him pay for intercity, the subscriber is already in another region! Very comfortably. It is possible after 30 days, but again, this generally only postpones the problem for a certain period, but does not solve it.
A few words about MNP
Let's remember how much MNP was administered. Do you think these operators were against? This is our government could not write the rules how everything should work. Who will route the calls, what to do with the intranet, which are no longer intranet, what to do with other regions, fixed phones? In the end, clear and explicit terms were written and it all worked. Why not do the same in this case. Prescribe all the details, discuss with the operators what is stopping them, develop common rules and gradually cancel roaming?
Results
Roaming is bad, but it should be canceled with the mind, not a cavalry assault. Then everything will be fine and logical. Now the situation of the species - you do something, and we will see and decide whether it suits us, or you still need to be fined, which will not lead to anything good. And we will pay for all this, subscribers.
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