T-Mobile to Pay a $40M Settlement

T-Mobile Inc. agreed on Monday to pay $40 million to the U.S. Treasury. This is to resolve the government claims that the company failed to fix problems of connecting calls in rural places and using false ring tones, according to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

The company, which is a unit of Deutsche Telekom AG, agreed to the changes and acknowledged that they used false ring tones on hundreds of millions of long-distance rural calls and violating the rules of FCC.

Meanwhile, Mignon Clyburn, the Democratic FCC Commissioner, stated that T-Mobile’s “massively deceptive and harmful violations” of the rules likely impacted “billions of telephone calls to rural areas over the past several years.”

Clyburn also criticized the settlement of FCC, stating that the fine was inadequate given the harm, and that the Democratic commissioners were not part in the settlement negotiations.

According to her, there is “absolutely nothing in this consent decree to compensate consumers.”

“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,” stated, Ajit Pai, the Chairman of FCC.

The German telecommunications company stated that it had corrected what it called the “unintentional” issue back in January last year. The company also added that it is “committed to all of our customers across the country.”

“False ring tones can cause callers to believe that the phone is ringing at the called party’s premises when it is not,” stated the FCC. It also noted that “uncompleted calls can cause rural businesses to lose revenue, impede medical professionals from reaching patients in rural areas, cut families off from their relatives, and create the potential for dangerous delays in public safety communications.”

However, T-Mobile stated that they already settle the matter and that the company will continue to focus on its mission to change the wireless for good for its customers everywhere.

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