The reason for the increase was a sharp drop in companies' revenues from international roaming amid the pandemic and additional costs for building networks in "dormitory" areas, where Internet traffic moved after many offices were transferred to "remote locations".
According to Vedomosty, the upcoming increase is likely to affect tariffs in the range of 500-900 rubles.
"Their users are the most inert, they are not worried about the operator's price increase by 100 rubles", - the newspaper notes.
Operators are also expected to raise prices for additional services this year, such as cloud storage.
In 2020, the growth of cellular tariffs was about 10%. This year, when Russians significantly reduced the number of trips abroad and began to use less international roaming, companies are forced to compensate for their current costs, including the cost of complying with regulatory requirements.
Experts believe that if the reserves for hidden price increases, "hardwired" in the tariffication of additional services, will be selected, operators can go to a direct increase in tariffs.
A year ago, representatives of the largest networks notified their subscribers about the increase in tariffs for unlimited Internet, explaining this by the need to comply with new laws. First of all, it was about the “Yarovaya package”, which obliges operators to store data of calls and correspondence of customers.
Experts believe that the network revenues from international roaming "dropped out" due to the pandemic will not recover in 2021. Due to the transition of many companies to telecommuting, operators had to rebuild their networks, increasing capacity in "sleeping" areas, which also made them incur additional costs.