The State Committee on Telecommunications has approved a policy document intended to introduce some order to the development of paging services in Russia. The concept for the development of paging networks in Russia has been written to provide a legal framework governing the creation of federal paging networks in Russia. The document is vague, it hedges and does not lay out any obligatory new standards. Operators will not be obliged to provide roaming. It says a federal system may be based on leased frequencies or on multiplexed ones. These two types should comply with several conditions. To facilitate inter-city roaming, networks will be obliged to use a common standard which is most likely to be the European Radio Message System standard recently approved by the International Telecommunications Union, intended eventually to provide international roaming. The networks, based on leased and on multiplexed frequencies, should all use Post Office Code Standards Advisory Group and Radio Data System signal formats respectively. As usual, the Ministry of Communications says it reserves the right to regulate activities of different paging service providers mainly through licensing and certification of equipment.
