The issue of abolishing roaming between Belarus and Russia has not yet been fully resolved, with many nuances still remaining, said State Secretary of the Union State Sergey Glazyev in an interview with the BelRos television channel. The text of the interview was published on the website of the Union State Standing Committee.
“This task turned out to be somewhat more complicated than it seemed at first glance. Initially, we wanted to simply abolish roaming. But due to a number of technical issues, we took a slightly different path. We expanded the volume and duration of preferential packages so that citizens would not actually notice crossing the border, especially those arriving for a short period — up to a week — and could use the same tariffs as at home. … And although formally roaming has not been abolished, nevertheless citizens can use the tariffs they are accustomed to for basic telephony services,” Glazyev said.
According to the official, a number of issues still need to be resolved, including those related to special services and internet access. The problem of identity verification remains unresolved.
“A decision was made to move toward integration with the Gosuslugi portal so that identification could be carried out while in Belarus through a gateway on the Russian Gosuslugi portal. I think this is a key direction that will be implemented.
We have also made it easier for Belarusian citizens to undergo identification in major cities, especially in Moscow and St. Petersburg, so that they can use the services of all multifunctional centers for these purposes. The task, I will say frankly, has not yet been fully resolved. Although most people have already undergone identification, there are still many citizens who have not yet done so,” Glazyev said.
The problem is complicated by the so-called “cooling-off regime” — the shutdown of mobile internet for 24 hours upon entry into Russia. According to Glazyev, Belarus and Russia have agreed that Belarusian citizens should be given the opportunity for the same type of identification as Russians, through simple actions on a mobile phone.
The abolition of roaming between Belarus and Russia has been promised for several years. First Deputy Minister of Communications and Informatization Pavel Tkach had stated that all roaming-related problems would be resolved by the end of this year.