Telecommunications companies have appealed to the Ministry of Digital Development with a request to postpone the introduction of an additional charge for consumption of international mobile traffic above 15 GB per month. As Vedomosti learned from conversations with three participants in the discussions, launching the mechanism on May 1, 2026 is technically impossible. Operators do not have time to reconfigure billing systems, which must separate Russian and foreign traffic in real time, charge for overages, and issue bills under the revised terms.
The main problem is the lack of clear criteria for what traffic should be considered international. Russian services widely use foreign infrastructure and IP addresses, while Google CDN networks within Russia turn foreign content into domestic traffic. At the same time, users who enable VPNs to access slowed YouTube generate exactly the kind of "international" traffic that the regulator intends to restrict. Without a regulatory definition, operators risk either blocking legal services or missing the targeted volume.
According to Telecom Daily CEO Denis Kuskov, 15 GB of VPN traffic per month is an amount that an average subscriber uses up only when circumvention tools are constantly enabled. The limit may be insufficient for downloading films, working with foreign neural networks, and watching YouTube. At the same time, the operator is required to notify the user in advance when approaching the threshold, but the mechanism for notification and subsequent actions (speed reduction, auto-payment, or disconnection) has still not been agreed upon.
Some market participants are ready to launch charging from May 1, while others need time until autumn. The publication's sources believe that the regulator will choose a compromise deadline between May and September, since configuring billing for 180 million subscribers and changing tariff plans require at least several months. In practice, the initiative to squeeze out VPN traffic is running into the banal unpreparedness of infrastructure rather than political will.