Canadian operators will terminate the roaming agreement with Russian

Canadian operators will terminate the roaming agreement with Russian

Canadian cellular operators have already terminated or are in the process of terminating roaming agreements with the Russian “big four”. The process began after the Canadian authorities imposed sanctions on mobile operators of the Russian Federation.

“We received messages about the termination of the service, then one by one local operators began to disconnect us from roaming,” said a source in the Russian company. Other sources emphasized that so far in no country have all local operators terminated roaming relations at once.

According to a source in the Russian mobile operator, previously when roaming was disabled by a partner, the company could switch to another operator or transfer its subscribers’ traffic through an operator from another country that has a roaming agreement with the first. But in Canada, the first option is impossible, because all the country’s operators break the relationship, and the second will take a long time. “We just encountered a problem, we just don’t have time to use the option of working through operators from other countries, subscribers will definitely face a loss of connection,” says the source. “And if there is an operator in some country who dares to transfer the traffic of our subscribers, then it will be possible to calculate it, there is a risk that such an operator will also be blocked.”

Another company said that subscribers will be able to receive communication services by connecting to Wi-Fi or buying SIM cards of local operators, but without roaming they will not be able to receive SMS to a Russian number.

“Megafon” confirmed that it received a message from Canadian operators about the suspension of cooperation. “Now the connection is available to subscribers who are roaming in Canada. We are informing these customers about alternative ways to stay in touch,” the company said.

Vimpelcom said: “For the time being, the possibility of receiving roaming communication services in Canada remains, but we assume that in the near future all current agreements will be suspended, which will cause a lack of communication for those of our customers who are on the territory of the country. Currently, we are looking for a way out of the situation and are preparing information for customers.” The company explained that the termination of the agreements will make it impossible to provide roaming communication services for subscribers from Canada who are in Russia.

“T2 RTK Holding” says that roaming communication services are available to subscribers in Canada: “We are negotiating and doing everything possible to minimize the consequences of a negative scenario. We are sure that the situation in Canada will not affect the availability of services in other countries.”

A total of three national mobile operators operate in Canada — Rogers Communications Inc., BCE Inc. (Bell) and TELUS Corporation. In addition, there are smaller operators in the country such as Vidéotron ltée, Freedom Mobile, Saskatchewan Telecommunications (SaskTel), Eastlink Inc. and other.

representative of BCE Inc. said RBC that the decision to restrict roaming was made “to comply with the Canadian government’s sanctions against Russia.” At the same time, the company continues to provide roaming services to the Russian operator “Ekaterinburg-2000”, which provides services under the “Motive” brand in the Sverdlovsk and Kurgan regions, Khanty-Mansiysk and Yamalo-Nenets autonomous districts.

According to an RBC source in one of the Russian operators, approximately 10,000 subscribers of the “big four” currently use roaming in Canada.

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