The fine is also "dwarfed by larger, unpaid fines recently proposed against individual robocallers," and the compliance plan that T-Mobile must follow "does not contain any concessions that would explain such a massive discount," she wrote.Ĭlyburn, one of two Democrats on the Republican-majority commission, also criticized Chairman Ajit Pai for not letting the full commission vote on the T-Mobile order. The $40 million penalty is too small "to address massively deceptive and harmful violations of the Commission's rules likely impacting billions-yes, billions-of telephone calls to rural areas over the past several years," Clyburn said. Despite demonstrating a clear and tangible consumer harm, in this consent decree, consumers are treated as a mere afterthought." "Prior consent decrees have included direct-to-consumer benefits, such as refunds or discounts, or notifications to customers who have been impacted. "There is absolutely nothing in this consent decree to compensate consumers," Clyburn said in a statement about the T-Mobile penalty. The company continued inserting fake ring tones into calls despite the new rule. T-Mobile was already using fake ring tones for several years before that rule took effect. False ring tones are a problem on calls to rural areas and are a symptom of the problems of impaired quality and completion of calls to rural areas. False ring tones also create a misleading impression that a caller's service provider is not responsible if the call fails. A caller may then hang up, thinking no one is available to receive the call. The FCC order explains why fake ring tones are a violation of a commission rule that has been in effect since January 2014:įalse ring tones cause callers to believe that the phone is ringing at the called party's premises when it is not. It's not clear how many of these calls weren't completed at all, because T-Mobile used the fake ring tones on many types of calls that took longer than usual to complete. T-Mobile admitted that it used the fake ring tones on "hundreds of millions of calls" each year, the FCC said. FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn criticized the commission for not getting refunds for customers. T-Mobile will pay the $40 million fine into the US Treasury. "To settle this matter, T-Mobile admits that it violated the Commission's prohibition against the insertion of false ring tones and that it did not correct problems with delivery of calls to certain rural areas," states an order issued by the Federal Communications Commission today. T-Mobile USA has agreed to pay a $40 million fine after admitting that it failed to complete phone calls in rural areas and used "false ring tones" that created the appearance that the calls were going through and no one was picking up. Getty Images | fizkes reader comments 128
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