Telecom giant T-Mobile received a sharp reminder on Monday from federal regulators: Its system still needs some work, and it can't just pretend otherwise.
The wake-up call came in the form of a $40 million settlement to address the Federal Communications Commission's claims the company used false ringtones to disguise issues of faulty calls. The use of phony ringtones, which "cause callers to believe that the phone is ringing at the called party's premises when it is not" per the FCC, was banned back in 2014, even though Reuters notes that T-Mobile had used the system since as far back as 2007.
But the settlement is also a reminder of the dismal digital divide that persists between rural and non-rural communities across America. Of the 11 percent of Americans who currently do not use the Internet, nearly a quarter (22 percent) are rural, according to March of 2018 from the Pew Research Center; another fifth (19 percent) have an annual income below $30,000, a significant barrier to access.