T-Mobile today agreed to pay the FCC (PDF) a fine of $40 million to settle two separate violations.
First, the FCC concluded that T-Mobile failed to connect calls to customers served by three rural phone companies in Wisconsin. Moreover, the FCC found that the problems persisted even though T-Mobile claimed to have resolved the issues.
“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 FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. “The FCC is committed to ensuring that phone calls to all Americans, including rural Americans, go through.”
T-Mobile was also hammered for injecting false ring tones into certain calls. It admitted to doing so on hundreds of millions of calls, which violate FCC rules.
This settlement marks the sixth for T-Mobile with respect to rural calls. The company did not offer comment on the settlement.
