T-Mobile will pay $40 million for failing to fix rural calls
The carrier also fessed up to inserting fake ringtones during calls.
T-Mobile has agreed to pay (PDF) the FCC $40 million for failing to fix ongoing call failures for rural customers. The carrier previously claimed that it had resolved the problem, but the Commission kept getting complaints about calls that weren't going through. The company also admitted it had committed another grave FCC sin: Injecting false ring tones while customers are on the line, which misleads them into thinking the carrier isn't to blame if a call fails.
Per the agreement, T-Mobile admits fault and will pay the fine, though it's far from the first time the company has done so. In 2015, it settled with the FCC for $17.5 million around a pair of 911 outages, which prevented customers from contacting emergency services. The carrier also paid the Commission $48 million in 2016 over its misleading data plans, which throttled users consuming the most information without properly disclosing such a policy.
