Russian MP discovers that charging for foreign internet traffic is a bad idea
After months of planning, Russia's Ministry of Digital Development officially drops its controversial proposal to tax international web traffic.
Levelling extra fees on users for international business communication and family chats is absurd, according to Andrey Svintsov, deputy head of the State Duma committee on information policy. Speaking to Gazeta.Ru, the lawmaker endorsed the Ministry of Digital Development's decision to scrap the proposed levy on foreign internet traffic.
The policy retreat follows repeated technical warnings from the telecom industry. Earlier plans sought to charge for mobile international traffic exceeding 15 GB per month, with implementation dates pushed back from May to June and later toward autumn. Telecom operators warned that their systems could not adjust to the deadline in time and that standard routing peculiarities made it impossible to isolate regular foreign connections or VPN usage from domestic traffic routed through neighboring countries.
Experts previously pointed out that data requests between domestic cities like Novosibirsk can occasionally traverse foreign infrastructure in countries like Kazakhstan, China, or Mongolia. Had the restrictions taken effect, millions of users and businesses relying on foreign hosting providers or border regions could have faced massive monthly bills.
Source: habr
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