Transition of the year: small providers were offered to transfer their clients to Rostelecom

Rostelecom offered small Internet service providers a way to keep their business - to transfer the service of their subscribers to the state operator. This is stated in the company's presentation sent to small telecom operators. Rostelecom is ready to take on regulatory and financial risks, and providers will continue to service their own networks and receive payment for it. The initiative appeared against the background of government plans to tighten licensing requirements for small operators, including setting standards for authorized capital and prohibiting individual entrepreneurs from working in the communications sector. According to experts, the scheme can help some small companies to keep business, but the providers themselves are skeptical about the proposal.

What is offered to small operators

Rostelecom offered small operators to conclude a service agreement and work with it as partners. This is stated in the presentation of the state operator, sent to providers (Izvestia has it).

According to the proposed scheme, Rostelecom will serve subscribers of small providers under its own brand and will assume regulatory, operational and commercial risks. Former service providers will focus on maintaining the lines to which their former subscribers are connected and connecting new customers. They will receive payment from the state operator for these works. Rostelecom also plans to provide additional services and cybersecurity issues to its users, the document says.

Rostelecom is actively developing the FVNO (Fixed Virtual Network Operator) business model and sees great prospects in it, the company's press service noted. The state operator has already implemented such projects with MegaFon, T2 and MTS.

— We are open to cooperation with both major players and regional operators. Such projects are mutually beneficial and, of course, have a positive impact on the development of the telecom services market in the regions of Russia, providing convenience and expansion of available services for customers, the state operator believes.

Rostelecom is offering a new scheme of cooperation to small telecom companies against the background of upcoming changes in licensing of communication services in Russia. Market participants and officials have been discussing them since the spring of 2026. In particular, it is planned to reduce the number of licenses from the current 20 to three or four, while tightening the requirements for their recipients.

So, individual entrepreneurs will not be able to obtain such licenses, the annual contribution of the operator to the universal service reserve should be at least 1 million rubles, and the authorized capital should be at least 30 million rubles, the presentation says. Because of this, independent local providers may disappear in dozens of regions, unable to meet new financial and regulatory standards, industry associations previously estimated. In turn, the head of the Ministry of Finance, Maksut Shadaev, emphasized that the key task of the reform is to ensure national information security, combat unscrupulous players, those who do not comply with the requirements of the SORM (system of operational investigative measures).

The Ministry of Finance continues to work on improving legislation in the field of communications, it is premature to talk about specific norms, the ministry said. The result of the upcoming legislative initiatives should be an increase in the standards of work in the telecom market while maintaining competition, they stressed. The changes are aimed at ensuring that services are offered only by bona fide companies interested in quality work, infrastructure development and long-term investments in network modernization, according to the Ministry of Finance.

— Rostelecom's commercial proposal is not directly related to the upcoming amendments. According to the current legislation, telecom operators can negotiate with each other on such interaction. One operator retains the physical infrastructure and receives regular payments for its lease. Another operator uses this equipment to provide services to end customers, while taking care of all issues related to compliance with regulatory requirements, they also claim.

Vimpelcom, Megafon and Er-Telecom Holding declined to comment. Izvestia also sent a request to MTS.

What will change in the telecom market

There are no exact estimates of how many operators may leave the market after the reform, said Oleg Yablokov, NTI wireless expert. Industry associations predict a reduction in the market by a quarter to a third. According to calculations by the Rosteleset association, less than a tenth of broadband access companies fully meet the requirements, he said.

According to him, Rostelecom's scheme is working and was not invented yesterday. The state operator has long reduced the technical staff in the regions and is attracting local companies to connect, he said. The proposed model will help to remove the regulatory burden, the contractor still has a network, teams and service fees, but this is a different business, and not a rescue of the old one, he believes.

— Subscribers are the main asset of the provider. Giving them to someone means, according to economic criteria, to lose the operator's business and switch to the Rostelecom network maintenance service," Alkhas Mirzabekov, CEO of the operator of JSC YESK, told Izvestia. — After a detailed study, the proposed form is more like a soft translation in the interests of the big four and a number of regional operators. As a result of the integration, we will see a decrease in the number of SMEs, a monopolization of the telecommunications services market and an increase in the average tariff to 3 thousand rubles per month per household. This will support large operators with loan servicing problems and extensive expansion plans.

In his opinion, the claims against small operators that are voiced during the preparation of the licensing reform, for example, of unreliability, are often groundless. In market conditions, customers vote in rubles and are well-versed thanks to modern AI tools in such parameters as marketing campaigns, reviews, dynamic pricing, package offers of services, and the speed of response to subscriber malfunctions, he noted.

Small operators are often more flexible than large ones, more customer-oriented, with a high response rate to subscribers' problems, and with more active work with developers, Alkhas Mirzabekov listed. They work in niches where major players do not go, and they are sources of competition, tariff containment, provision of services in hard-to-reach places, and stimulation of market competition mechanisms. Their subscriber base is more loyal, the range of services is wider at affordable prices, and access networks are being actively upgraded to xPON speeds, he explained.

Leonid Konik, a partner at ComNews Research, agrees that Rostelecom's idea is not new. According to him, the state operator is still actively attracting regional communications companies, including for organizing the last mile and connecting subscribers locally. However, in the context of stricter regulation, Rostelecom is trying to take advantage of the current situation, the expert believes. According to him, the tariffs of small providers are usually lower than those of large players. In addition, their competitive advantages remain personalized technical support and prompt on-site troubleshooting.