Hello.
After problems with YouTube arose in Russia for regular wired providers, in the absence of blocking for mobile operators, a traffic flow arose. Some use various tricks to watch YouTube on familiar devices and via home Internet, but many decided not to pervert and watch everything via mobile Internet. And here a small hitch arose, since it turned out that operators very quickly cut traffic, or rather, its speed.
Let me remind you that last year, users complained en masse that operators were introducing a fee for distributing the Internet to other devices. Many arguments were given as to why this should not be done. Ultimately, a bunch of complaints to the FAS led to the agency working out an agreement with the operators. The fee for distributing the Internet is cancelled, and the parameters are set based on the actual state of affairs. On all package tariffs where the volume of mobile traffic is limited, the subscriber can distribute the Internet until the package is exhausted. When purchasing a new package, you can also distribute it for free. For old tariffs with unlimited Internet, the situation was different, such tariffs were often used to provide communication to offices, cafes and similar establishments, and not only for personal purposes. As a result, a lot of traffic was spent when distributing the Internet, and the operators rightly believed that the terms of the agreement were being violated. To prevent this from happening, and to prevent mobile Internet from serving as a replacement for wired Internet, they decided to limit traffic, the maximum volume that was set was exactly 20 GB. In fact, all of this was agreed upon with the FAS, and since then everything has been working like that. Usually, after these 20 GB have been used up, operators offer to extend the speed for a day for an additional fee (50 rubles from one of the operators) or extend the speed until the end of the month (about 100 rubles). Not an exorbitant amount, which looks like a simple solution to all problems, including access to YouTube. Here, however, it is important to say that viewing YouTube is not at all guaranteed with mobile operators, moreover, external devices are often cut off, videos do not load on them or are shown with defects.
Another round of appeals to the FAS from users with unlimited mobile Internet does not find enthusiastic support from the agency, the reason is clear and transparent – the conditions were agreed upon earlier. Moreover, the load on the networks of mobile operators was created artificially, and no one calculated it in advance. An attempt to put pressure on operators may lead to the fact that in the public arena, discussions around YouTube, what is happening with blocking, and so on will flare up with renewed vigor. No one wants to take on such responsibility, here you can literally risk your career. In principle, the topic of blocking YouTube has become a local Schrödinger’s cat for us, it seems to be there, but it is not there.
Some unpleasant moments that are important to know. Nowhere is it explicitly stated about the restrictions for subscribers, you can only find out about them after the fact and after contacting the support service. Of course, there are imbalances in places, when the 20 GB limit is imposed not on one person, but on a family subscription (apparently, the billing features of a particular operator). In this case, you need to knock on the support service and find out all the details. For those who want to solve the issue more or less painlessly, there is a simple way – buy a SIM card with a traffic package and distribute it to other devices. Yes, it will cost some money, but quite comparable to the price of this or that subscription, which are offered today by different companies. An unpopular offer, but what to do? Operators are unable to digest the influx of those who watch YouTube through them, since this kills the quality of the mobile Internet for all other users who cannot use it as before.
I am very interested to wait for the third quarter data on the volume of data transmitted per subscriber in mobile networks, most likely we will see a sharp peak in consumption. Moreover, the volume of transmitted data is growing year on year, but there will clearly be a takeoff here. I don’t want to guess what it will be.
Of course, you can turn on consumer extremism, demand that the FAS, operators and anyone else turn on mobile Internet distribution on unlimited plans. But this will not do anything good for the market as a whole, operators are unable to withstand such an influx of users. In fact, we need to say that such distribution can only be turned on in one case – if YouTube is blocked everywhere, both on wired and mobile networks. As far as I understand, at the moment this is simply impossible, RKN does not have enough technical resources for this. And the news that the agency plans to use 58 billion rubles from the budget (read – my and your taxes) over several years to purchase additional equipment, well emphasizes the problems that RKN faced when blocking YouTube. It does not work like this and will not work tomorrow.
Operators are once again the ones left in this story, they have to clean up the short-sighted consequences of emotional decisions that were not calculated. The load that fell on mobile networks was not planned by anyone, there is no safety margin in certain regions, it has been used up almost entirely (operators will deny this to the last). In general, the picture of what is happening looks like something that was unimaginable until recently, we are burying the backbone of the economy with our own hands, since nothing in the country can exist without telecom.
And the reason here is not that YouTube is good or bad, we just need to decide how to block it everywhere, half-hearted solutions are impossible. That is, blocking should be either everywhere or nowhere. But this story about the fact that we block in such networks, and let traffic through here, only creates conditions for increased load, uneven distribution of traffic. In a word, it breaks everyone’s usual picture of the world. And no one is happy with the situation. You and I are irritated by the uncertainty of the actions of the same RKN, which seems to not block or slow down anything, although many deputies are already openly saying the opposite. From the fact that we need to look for some solutions for the usual way of life and this requires effort and additional expenses in one form or another. There is no doubt that they got into our pockets with this situation. Moreover, as you can see, they got into much more than you could even imagine, the additional expenses of RKN are a minus to many projects inside the country that could receive these billions. Operators are also experiencing problems. And for officials, in the same FAS, this whole story creates tension, which requires some actions or other. No one is happy, but the situation continues, such is the paradox.
And the last thing I can say on this issue. September 10, 2024 can be considered the day when the degradation of communication networks in Russia began, we need a point of no return to describe what will happen next in our country, right? I think that the date is perfect for this and all subsequent discussions. There are no more reasons to believe in a positive turnaround, an improvement in the situation. It is impossible to hope that something will change dramatically in the coming year. More equipment for blocking, more broken services, worse connectivity at the country level. Everything is very simple and clear, there are no special secrets here. The only thing that is unclear is why someone decided to break telecom in Russia and does it day after day. Read about the fall of regional operators, these are links in the same chain, there will be more and more such events every day. And then it will reach large companies. I am not exaggerating at all, I am describing what I see in such dark colors. It is also not possible to remain silent about this. Although for most people all this is indifferent, and people will evaluate non-working telecom based on the facts in a year and a half, when they will not be able to do the usual things that they got used to in previous years. And now it is the Russian “maybe”, maybe it will pass and everything will somehow get better by itself.
Source: mobile-review.com
