Communications and Informatization Minister Kiryl Zaleski explained how the newly introduced debt limit on mobile subscribers’ balances will work in practice. According to him, the main problem the measure addresses is accidental debts incurred in roaming, BelTA reported.
Recorded cases have reached 4,300–4,500 Belarusian rubles: people would accidentally turn on their phones abroad and then had to prove that it happened by mistake. He noted that the problem is particularly acute with mobile internet — with the development of 5G networks, even a few seconds of activity can result in significant expenses.
Under the new rules, an operator is not allowed to accumulate a subscriber’s debt beyond minus 225 rubles and cannot предъявлять financial claims exceeding this amount. If desired, the subscriber may contact the operator and change the threshold — either increasing or decreasing it. For example, before traveling abroad, a subscriber can submit a corresponding request at the operator’s office.
Further actions, such as timely notifications, service suspension or SMS alerts, remain the responsibility of the operator.
“As a rule, the issue concerns not voice traffic but internet usage in roaming: with the development of networks and increasing data speeds, especially in the 5G standard, even a few seconds of activity after turning on a phone abroad can lead to significant expenses. If a subscriber has not purchased the appropriate package in advance or disabled data transmission in roaming, the maximum risk is now limited to a certain amount,” the minister said.
The choice of five base units was explained by the fact that operators already use a credit-based payment method and there is usually a self-imposed limit — five SIM cards per subscriber.
“This amount roughly corresponds to a situation where one adult family member has SIM cards registered for all household members, sometimes even under a single personal account. In order not to disrupt this practice, the possibility of a negative balance remains, but it is limited,” the minister said.
He also recalled another restriction: paid additional services can now be activated only on the explicit initiative of the subscriber through an SMS or USSD request.
“Previously there were cases when a user, after finishing a call, accidentally tapped a pop-up advertising link without reading it and automatically subscribed to horoscopes, jokes or weather forecasts. Now such a subscription is possible only on the initiative of the subscriber, confirmed by manually entering the appropriate request,” he said.
Earlier on Thursday, Prime Minister Alyaksandr Turchyn signed a resolution of the Council of Ministers “On the Radio Frequency Spectrum,” introducing several changes to the regulation of the telecommunications market. In particular, a debt limit was introduced for mobile subscribers’ balances. By default, the negative balance on an account cannot exceed five base units — 225 rubles.