Kyivstar slams bill foreseeing operators' liability to disconnect 'grey' phones

Kyivstar believes that draft law No. 1888 on the protection of telecommunications service consumers and improving state regulation of the use of the radio frequency spectrum (the author is Oleksandr Danchenko, Samopomich), violates the constitutional rights of citizens and empowers the telecommunications regulator to fulfill the functions of courts and investigators, Kyivstar CEO Peter Chernyshov wrote on his Facebook page.
He said that if the bill is passed, the procedure of the forced out-of-court disconnection of subscribers' terminals by mobile communications operators will be automatically introduced.
"Actually, the subscribers who bought a phone in a Ukrainian retail chain are obliged to be responsible for actions of unfair sellers or suppliers, while mobile operators would have to punish these subscribers by disconnecting their phones. Unfair sellers of "grey" phones are absolutely beside the point. However, the customs service and the Interior Ministry which are obliged to fight imports and sales of smuggled goods in Ukraine wash their hands of the affair," he said.
He criticized the new requirement proposed by the bill: to introduce obligatory frequency monitoring for all radio-electronic mobile devices and disconnect them on the basis of instructions issued by the National Commission for Communications Regulation (NCCR).
"Actually the regulator gets the right to interfere in the operations of companies, and it can disconnect your base stations without any court decision. This, of course, is a direct signal to all operators that the country really "invites" their investment into 3G," he said.
He said that Kyivstar and other representatives of the sector sent their remarks to the parliamentary committee for informatization and communications, which is led by Danchenko, but the committee has ignored the position of the sector.