T-Mobile fined $40 million for faking ringtones and failing calls in rural areas

T-Mobile will pay the US Treasury $40 million to settle a dispute with the FCC over failed calls and faked ringtones for rural areas. The FCC annouced the fine, following a years-long investigation into actions that took place starting in 2016. The complaint broadly concerns how T-Mobile treats rural calls, specifically problems T-Mobile has with connecting calls to rural areas and the length of time taken to establish a call. The most significant problem appears to be that T-Mobile injected fake ringtones onto the line before the phone on the other end of the line started ringing, something that helps mask how long T-Mobile was taking to connect calls, but is also against FCC rules.  “The investigation also revealed T-Mobile’s practice of injecting false ring tones into certain calls. T-Mobile reported that it had done so on hundreds of millions of calls and admitted that its actions violated the Commission’s prohibition of injecting false ring tones on any calls.”