The Ministry of Digital Development is again discussing with telecom operators payment for international mobile traffic. According to Kommersant, one of the options being considered provides for payment after 50 GB of international traffic per month in 5G networks, but a final decision has not yet been made.

Previously, a threshold of 15 GB was discussed. In July, Deputy Head of the Ministry of Digital Development Ivan Lebedev stated in the State Duma that payment for foreign traffic was not being considered.

The main problem now is related to billing. 5G traffic passes through the LTE network, so the operator needs to learn how to separately account for international traffic when a subscriber is using 5G and LTE. According to experts, such a scheme is technically possible after configuring the packet core and billing.

Kommersant cites market experts' assessment, according to which technical separation is possible using mobile network parameters and configuring the packet core and billing system, but there is no ready-made solution for mass tariffication yet.

A separate problem is the definition of international traffic. Foreign IP addresses and infrastructure can be used by Russian services, so international traffic cannot be directly equated with VPN traffic.

The 50 GB threshold is significantly higher than the average mobile internet consumption. According to Kommersant's estimate, in 2025, a private subscriber consumed about 24 GB of mobile traffic per month, and this is all mobile traffic, not just international. Therefore, the potential measure will primarily affect users with a large volume of foreign traffic, and not the majority of subscribers.

Commercial 5G networks in Russia are still operating on a limited basis: they have been launched in 16 cities, with initial access for about 10 million people. Therefore, even if a decision is made, the new tariffication scheme will only cover a portion of users at the initial stage.