T-Mobile Agrees to $40 Million Fine to Settle FCC Investigation of Calling Practices
The FCC reached a $40 million settlement with T-Mobile USA concluding an investigation into whether the carrier violated the Communications Act when it didn’t correct ongoing problems with delivery of calls to rural consumers. T-Mobile also violated an FCC rule…
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that prevents carriers from inserting false ring tones on hundreds of millions of calls, the FCC said. T-Mobile agreed to pay a $40 million fine and entered into a compliance plan aimed at preventing future violations, said an FCC news release. “It is a basic tenet of the nation’s phone system that calls be completed to the called party, without a reduction in the call quality -- even when the calls pass through intermediate providers,” said Chairman Ajit Pai. T-Mobile calls were unable to reach customers of three rural carriers in Wisconsin and investigation found possible violations in seven other rural areas, the FCC said. “The investigation also revealed T-Mobile’s practice of injecting false ring tones into certain calls. T-Mobile reported that it had done so on hundreds of millions of calls and admitted that its actions violated the Commission’s prohibition of injecting false ring tones on any calls.” Rural consumers and companies "have suffered rural call failure since 2010," NTCA said in response. "Continued vigilance on the part of industry and the Commission, combined with enforceable regulatory backstops, clearly remain essential to ensure that rural call failure will not compromise the integrity of our nation’s networks and the safety and welfare of rural communities.” T-Mobile said: "Our actions have always been focused on better serving our customers and the ringtone oversight, which was corrected in January 2017, was unintentional. We have settled this matter -- and will continue to focus on our mission to change wireless for good -- for consumers everywhere." Commissioner Mignon Clyburn slammed the consent decree, saying it badly missed the mark. The $40 million penalty “is dwarfed by larger, unpaid fines recently proposed against individual robocallers -- and the volume of potential violations here outpaces any robocalling action the Commission has taken,” she said. “The compliance plan does not contain any concessions that would explain such a massive discount.” Clyburn questioned why consumers won’t see any refunds, and said she asked for a vote by commissioners but didn’t get one. “Prior consent decrees have included direct-to-consumer benefits, such as refunds or discounts, or notifications to customers who have been impacted,” she said. “Despite demonstrating a clear and tangible consumer harm, in this consent decree, consumers are treated as a mere afterthought.”