Russia considers mandating free incoming cell calls

We've never been happy about having to pay for incoming calls on our cellphones, but we've become resigned to it. After all, this isn't Europe, right? Or Russia. Turns out those godless ex-Communists have decided to show how consumer-friendly they are by making it illegal for cell services to charge customers for incoming minutes. The lower house of the Duma, the Russian parliament, has approved an amendment to the country's communication law that would require incoming calls to be free. We don't know if this'll ever make it into law, but we do know that it would never even show up in debate in the US. Unless, that is, it was quietly slipped in to a pointless pork-barrel bill having nothing to do with telecom. Hmm, there's an idea.

[Via textually.org]