The Russian Government has banned calls to mobile and landline phones via the Internet. The corresponding decree was published on the website of the Cabinet of Ministers.
According to the document, from the list of licences for the provision of communication services ‘a licence for the transmission of Internet data with the overlay of voice information shall be excluded’. The government believes that most often ‘such technologies were used by fraudsters, as it allowed to spoof numbers.’
The Cabinet of Ministers emphasised that this decision ‘will have no effect on ordinary telephone users’ and people who use calls in messengers.
That said, a few days ago, two Kommersant sources said that a Ministry of Digitals and Roskomnadzor were discussing a possibility of imposing restrictions on calls in messengers due to adult activity of scammers. According to them, they considered blocking voice traffic only from abroad or a complete ban on voice calls in messengers.