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Mintsifra and the Government of the Russian Federation again thought about charging fees for traffic from foreign companies

The Ministry of Digital Development and the Government of the Russian Federation have returned to the initiative to charge additional fees from international IT companies for the use of traffic in favor of supporting telecom operators. This measure is indicated in the list of industry proposals sent to the government apparatus on March 1. The ministry proposes to create a service for passing data traffic from international "big tech companies". To do this, it is necessary to prepare a special law. According to the Kommersant publication, the office of Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko reported that work is already underway on this initiative. The status was recommended to be clarified in the Ministry of Digital Development, but they declined to comment.

Rostelecom has repeatedly proposed to take an additional fee for traffic from foreign IT companies without fail, emphasizing that in five years the total Internet traffic in the country has grown six times. It is proposed to pay 1.2% of the annual turnover to the universal service fund, from which the elimination of the digital divide is financed.

The measure was aimed primarily at video streaming services from giants such as Google, Amazon, Apple and Netflix, game PlayStation, Steam, Nintendo and Microsoft, Meta *, as well as cloud services of these companies. But now, due to the departure of most of these companies from the Russian market, the initiative may not be very relevant. Although the services of the same Google company are quite in demand, even taking into account the disabling of many functions, including the entire monetization of bloggers in Russia.

Expert opinion is divided. Some believe that such an initiative will help Russian telecom operators increase their network bandwidth and keep their fleet of equipment in working condition. Others are sure that this will lead to the exit of the remaining companies from the market, and users will be left without their services.

* recognized as an extremist organization, its activities are prohibited in Russia

Mintsifra and the Government of the Russian Federation again thought about charging fees for traffic from foreign companies