T-Mobile Settles FCC's Rural Dropped-Call Complaint for $40M
phonescoop.com/articles/article.php?a=20470
phonescoop.comPosted Apr 16, 2018, 6:07 PM UTC
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phonescoop.comSo do rural customers get a cut of this fine, or does it just buy a bigger mug for Ajit Pai?
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I don't think the customers will get any of this.
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If anything we will pay for this. They'll find some way to get an extra $40M. Whether it be some other dumb fee, or raising an administrative charge per line (or maybe that was Sprint, I forget.)
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Sprint was the company to recently raise their administrative fee price
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AT&T just raised theirs too, $1.26 per line now.
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It only takes 300,000ish lines (~0.5%) at $10 a month for a year to rack up $40 mil. Hmm, wasn't there some perk that was just axed last week for new customers, supposedly because only a small amount of customers signed up? Can't quite put my finger on it...
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I'm out of the loop here, what perk was cut?
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T-Mobile went taxes and fees included over a year ago, and if any “fees” go up, the price you pay doesn’t. Wouldn’t make much sense for them to charge themselves extra.
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rural customers won't see a penny. The FCC isn't really there to protect them. The FCC is there to see what they can extort from the larger companies and who is willing to pad their pockets to keep things running like the companies want.
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You people complain about him no matter what he does. Good or bad in YOUR opinion....
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How is this good? What problem did it solve for the customers?
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Tmobile won't keep doing this? Tmobile got caught and has to pay. That's what it did. Unless I'm misreading it.......
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Right, because 2 false initial rings (before showing on screen that the call failed) was so obviously nefarious and will help the rural users so much now that its no longer allowed.....
Way to go ajit pai!
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Nope. It was enacted for two years and made zero difference.
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Funny because you have no way of actually knowing that. Their is a great chance that larger ISPs had plans that were abandoned due to net neutrality rules. I guess we’ll find out soon enough.
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Classic example of how TMobile is just like any other carrier.
We all fell for that uncarrier crap but it was short lived
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Wow that's disappointing
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Wow this is disappointing to hear about
What the heck happened to my uncarrier I knew and loved?
I think my uncarrier sweetheart is cheating and picking up some bad habits and bringing them back to me 😀
I still love her but don't always recognize her at times
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It never existed it was a marketing tool designed to separate you from your money. All corporations are designed with the explicit purpose of accomplishing this goal and none other. The sooner consumers stop choosing sides and believing corporate speak --the better off we all will be.
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So what it the proper method for T-Mobile to let customers know they can't reach a cell phone they are calling that is not connected to a network? When the last Hurricane hit Florida last year I think we just had dead air after dialing. Not sure since a lot of calls connected.
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This happened on calls to landlines that either failed to connect or took longer than normal. If a cell phone isn't connected to the network, by default incoming calls go directly to voicemail.
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Few true landlines that I remember had a Cloud based Voicemail. I did but I know that not everyone that had a cellphone ever set up a voicemail. I have heard something along the lines of "we are having network issues please call another time. " that had a up and down tone.
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This depends on the dial plan.
As u/spacecoyotefarva said. The default action is to go directly to voicemail if the UE isn't on the network.
However, In a disaster scenario all bets are off.
I imagine the dial plan looks something like this.
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Accept call and start CDR record.
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Send call to switch for customers area (Probably Orlando)
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Orlando Switch attempts to find UE. Perhaps by some sort of registration database. If found, Connect call.
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Goto Voicemail.
Assuming some kind of hiccup in step 3, Where the switch perhaps sees the UE, But can't open a path to it. Or perhaps the Orlando switch itself is having issues. You might not ever make it to voicemail. Or perhaps you would after a absorbent timeout period. (like 60 seconds).
I think it's proper and not out of line to terminate an incoming call to voicemail if the UE isn't on-line. If you didn't. People would say "My phone died and I missed important voicemail X because it just said "this user can't be reached at this time""
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Just curious, how does this scenario work if the destination number is roaming abroad?
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Good question. I imagine the Orlando switch has some kind of access to another switch that the UE equipment registers to when roaming abroad. I'll have to educate myself a bit better before I make assumptions. Haha.
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I worked at a SIP-based VoIP company at the time that the ring back rules went into effect in 2014 (and worked on the issue leading up to the rule going into effect). Before the rule, we would tell the caller's phone to generate ring back (a "comfort ring" so that the caller didn't hang up). If the call didn't progress. We replaced the comfort ring with a "please wait" recording if call setup took too long. It fulfilled the requirements and didn't leave the caller listening to dead air.
The underlying issue is that some rural phone companies are still using very obsolete equipment so call setup takes a lot longer than it should. In some cases, calling rural Iowa (for example) takes longer to setup then calling internationally to many 3rd world countries. But getting them to upgrade to modern equipment is very unlikely. They're probably still pissed off that their conference call traffic pumping scheme was shutdown.
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Verizon settled with the FCC over rural completion rates. No issues were found and Verizon admitted to no wrong doing but created an RLEC process so the small carries could complain directly to Verizon via the FCC.
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That's pretty surprising.
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Imagine how much Legere would be going off on Twitter if Verizon or AT&T were caught doing this.
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Rural Nevada here. The thought isn't too far fetched as I've had lots of issues with time to connect calls, and recipients never recieving calls. Also, their data map of northern Nevada is complete garbage and wildly deceitful.
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This explains why sometimes people I'd call would say they answered on the 1st or 2nd ring yet I would have heard maybe 6-8 rings.
Thumbs down on T-Mobile for doing this in the first place without making the injected ring obvious.
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This explains why I've been getting voicemail without a phone call lately.
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I'm pretty sure this is still happening when you call, for example, Project Fi customers. I get about 3-5 seconds of one kind of "ringing" then that switches to audibly different "ringing" (at which point phone starts to ring, I presume) and then if no response another "ring" and voicemail :) Someone is skimping on number of SIP incoming calls or something...
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T-Mobile sure paid a lot less than Verizon paid in February 2018 that just screwed everyone in the country with buying Straight Path spectrum that should have been returned to the FCC to re-auction. Verizon payed the FCC $614.3 million, which "is the largest civil penalty ever paid to the US Treasury to resolve a Commission investigation," the FCC said.
Also, In 2017 Verizon Paying $17 Million In FCC Fraud Case for over charging customers.
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Injecting false rings into a call is pretty shady...
Maybe it's time to replicate the old long distance switching noises instead lol...
Hahahaha, I was just thinking that. I would be perfectly happy with some kerchunks or clicks, or even a small tone to let me know it's working on opening a line.... I've heard it a few times on TMo, it will ring once or twice a certain way, I hear a faint click, then the ring is slightly different. I knew something was up.
Click click click
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Correct, your edit nailed it. TMo was inserting fake rings into the original callers side to basically buy time while the circuit was being opened and connected to the other user. Once that circuit was open, then you'd get the real rings. If the call couldn't be completed, it would probably just drop and say call failed. My guess is it's there to prevent impatient people from repeatedly trying to make a call and then have several circuits trying to connect, potentially creating a bottleneck or unnecessary open circuits.
Or the more nefarious purpose: make the customers think the service is working fine and has good coverage and that it's just the recipient of the call not answering.
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This is exactly what it does.
I've worked in the telcom industry for the last ten years now from a technical point of view. I'm actually surprised to see "Fake rings" is actually a violation of FCC guidelines.
This is done by TONS of carriers for "user comfort". IE, It generates a preemptive 18X early media so the customer doesn't think it's just "dead air". In the event the call fails to establish, The terminating response code is pushed through end-to-end.
As a matter of fact, I know sprint does this on outbound calls for sure.
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The other day I made a call and I still heard the dial tone even though the other person answered. Same issue?
No, This was signalling failure. Your device didn't get the 200 OK from the far end and thus failed to accept incoming media.
I think the phone is having major problems. Calls will also disconnect with good service or be garbled. I don't think any other phone has this problem on the account.
It's certainly possible. But I'd take the normal steps before assuming that. IE reset the phone. Test it side by side with another known-good phone..etc.
Tmobile has nothing wrong. Hail tmobile!