📵 Small Operators Face Mass Extinction
A planned reform by the Ministry of Digital Development to tighten operator licensing frameworks threatens to trigger a catastrophe for the regional telecommunications market. This was the overarching conclusion reached by participants of a roundtable discussion organized by the Telesputnik publication at the Night Telecom Forum.
According to industry association estimates, thousands of companies are set to be impacted, putting digital infrastructure in small towns and rural settlements across the country at imminent risk of systemic collapse.
The Market Is Set to Contract Sharply
The central focus of the debate revolved around the consequences of the impending regulatory clampdown on small regional players. Alexey Leontiev, Director of the Association of Telecommunications Operators (ASTO), stated that the Ministry is fully aware of the upcoming fallout from the reform: out of approximately 4,300 small operators currently active, a maximum of 700 will survive in the market. Furthermore, three-quarters of these survivors will be concentrated exclusively in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and major cities with populations over one million.
“Consequently, around 70% to 80% of Russia’s territory will be left in a vacuum. We bring these metrics and present them to the Ministry of Digital Development; the Ministry understands this. How will people there cope without connectivity? Will federal giants step in and acquire these operators? The answer is yes,” Alexey Leontiev emphasized.
Corporate Interests Versus Rural Realities
The official justification for the reform—purging the market of non-compliant players—is met with severe skepticism from industry experts. Alexey Sturov, President of the Association of Communications Companies (AKS), noted that the crackdown on violators should be conducted through targeted administrative measures and fines, rather than sweeping pressure across the entire sector. In his view, the aggressive lobbying behind the bill does not stem from local personnel of the “Big Four” MNOs, who recognize the sheer impossibility of rapidly absorbing millions of rural subscribers, but rather from executive leadership driven strictly by high-level KPIs.
The exit of regional providers will create an infrastructure vacuum that corporate giants will be unable to fill, dealing a direct blow not only to residential consumers but also to local commercial enterprises.
Regulatory Opacity and Investment Risks
Roundtable participants highlighted a critical bottleneck: the Ministry of Digital Development is maintaining highly opaque operations and is in no rush to share the final draft of the document. Oleg Grishchenko, President of the Rosteleset association, drew attention to the fact that federal giants have virtually zero presence in smaller settlements, with rare exceptions such as Rostelecom.
“The Ministry of Digital Development does not fully comprehend the vital role small operators play in the structural evolution of the communications sector. Our task as associations is to accurately convey to the state the significance of regional operators and the actual capital volumes they reinvest into infrastructure development. These current regulatory steps and actions certainly do nothing to improve the industry’s investment climate,” Oleg Grishchenko concluded.
Source: Telesputnik
