T-Mobile is in some hot water with the United States government, as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today proposed that T-Mobile USA forfeit the amount of $819,000. This fine is due to the company “willfully and repeatedly” failing to comply with rules mandating each carrier offer a certain number of hearing-aid compatible handsets.
Apparently, T-Mobile violated the rules during 2009 and 2010 as they were probably warned by the FCC for their lack of HAC phones. The government enforces laws on compatibility requirements to wireless providers to make them offer some of the same access to the featured oriented phones out on the market today — to those hearing impaired.
As technology in mobile handsets evolve so does the minimum number of HAC phones required to be offered by Tier 1 carriers. At the moment, 10 handsets or at least 50% of a carriers’ breadth of devices must offer an M3 acoustic coupling, and 7 handsets or at least 33 percent must offer a T3 inductive coupling.
That being said, with all legal matters the company who violates said rules gets the opportunity to reduce or negate the proposed forfeiture (fine) by proving the right evidence proving otherwise to the FCC. It wouldn’t be surprising if T-Mobile tried to get the fine reduced.
I wonder if other wireless carriers will be targeted in the next few months?
[FCC; via phonescoop]