Communication providers are going to oblige to enter into contracts for connecting residential buildings

On Monday, Deputy Minister of Construction and Housing and Communal Services Andrei Chibis said that telecom operators will soon be obliged to enter into an agreement with management companies to start providing services to residents, as reported by Vedomosti. A formal contract will oblige the management company to provide the provider with access to the house and will provide all the necessary technical conditions for installation.

The form of a model contract, according to Andrew Chibis, is not yet ready, the government will establish it. For failure to comply with the contract, the parties will be strictly liable until the revocation of licenses.

“In 85% of the housing stock there are violations when the infrastructure is placed by providers. Operators spend about 1 billion rubles. per year on legal and illegal payments to management companies for the right to enter the house, ”said Chibis.

The draft law on non-discriminatory access of operators to residential buildings was proposed by several members of the Federation Council, including Andrei Klishas and Lyudmila Bokova. The document was developed to protect the interests of providers, which annually give the management companies and homeowner associations about 2% of revenues.

According to the analytical agency TMT Consulting, the turnover of the retail wired Internet market in 2018 left 135.6 billion rubles. Thus, the fee for access to residential buildings could be more than 2.7 billion rubles. This is tens of billions of rubles a year.

According to Lyudmila Bokova, the bill is a compromise option that takes into account the interests of all interested market participants and users. The document, in particular, prohibits management companies from charging operators for work in residential buildings. The provider can start working under a contract with a subscriber.

The appearance of standard contracts will allow consolidating the practice of payments to management companies, representatives of two operators, whose representatives participated in the meeting of the RUIE committee, say.

According to the curator of the working group “Svyaz and IT” of the expert council Irina Levova, the services that management companies usually sell are in fact the responsibility. The proposal of the management company to charge the operator is only an attempt to legalize the existing requisitions from the operators, respectively, and subscribers.

The demand for compensated contracts of operators and management companies is economically and legally unreasonable, as MTS representative Alexey Merkutov is sure. He believes that the operator mounts the equipment under a contract with tenants. The contracts themselves are the basis for entering a residential house, and the compensation of the costs of management companies is already incorporated in utility bills.

Representatives of VimpelCom and MegaFon opposed the introduction of a contractual basis with management companies and fees for presence in residential buildings. Both companies stated that by entering into an agreement with the provider, the subscriber agrees to the presence of camera equipment in the house.

I do not agree with the need to introduce model contracts and the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service (FAS). According to the deputy head of the department, Anatoly Golomolzin, the meaning of the bill is lost in its current form.

Another ministry, the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media, supports the draft law in the first reading - but only if it is finalized for the second reading. One of the main conditions for adopting a bill is to provide free access to residential buildings for operators. Interaction with management companies should be regulated. So, home network should not create discomfort for residents, the equipment must comply with fire safety requirements. It is also necessary to describe the issues of uninterrupted power supply, equipment safety, unhindered admission of repair teams to it. The best would be a standard contract.

The vice-president of Rostelecom, Boris Glazkov, said that the bill on the unimpeded and free admission of operators to residential buildings, which does not provide for contracts with management companies, is quite suitable for telecom operators.