TelecomTV TelecomTV
  • News
  • Videos
  • Channels
  • Events
  • Network Partners
  • Industry Insights
  • Directory
  • Newsletters
  • Open RAN
  • Digital Platforms and Services
  • 5G
  • Access Evolution
  • Private Networks
  • Cloud Native
  • Edge
  • Open Networking
  • Sustainability
  • AI, Analytics and Automation
  • 6G Research and Innovation
  • Security
  • More Topics
  • Network Partners
  • Industry Insights
  • Directory
  • Newsletters
  • |
  • About
  • Contact
  • |
  • Connect with us
  • 5G
  • 6G Research and Innovation
  • Access Evolution
  • AI, Analytics and Automation
  • Cloud Native
  • Digital Platforms and Services
  • Edge
  • Open Networking
  • Open RAN
  • Private Networks
  • Security
  • Sustainability
  • Connect with TelecomTV
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Help
  • Contact
  • Sign In Register Subscribe
    • Subscribe
    • Sign In
    • Register
  • Search

Telco & CSP

Telco & CSP

T-Mobile caught out being a carrier (welcome back)

Ian Scales
By Ian Scales

Jul 3, 2014

John Legere struts his stuff at CES14. By fanaticTRX (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

John Legere struts his stuff at CES14. By fanaticTRX (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

That’s the trouble with occupying the moral high ground  -  you make a good target and they’ll  get you in the cross-hairs eventually. Yes, it’s egg on face time for T-Mobile USA. The self-proclaimed ‘uncarrier’, has allegedly been caught out 'cramming' customers for premium SMS and the Federal Trade Commission (the FTC) is on the case. 

Cramming is where you allow (or worse, ‘cause’) items to appear on a customer’s bill that it neither wanted or ordered. The key here is the huge cut carriers (or even uncarriers) tend to take for things like premium services - up to 40 per cent of the proceeds of a premium SMS message, for instance.  That means it’s in line to make just as much as, let’s say, a fraudulent operation sending out unwanted high-cost messages.  

So the suspicion is that when such things happen the carrier concerned is incentivised to turn a blind eye, safe in the knowledge that it has so-called plausible deniability lined up should it all go public. If it doesn’t go public and refunds aren’t demanded then it stands to make a substantial wedge. (I have been caught out on this myself - apparently I took a trip to Morocco and made dozens of premium calls there - but that’s another story).  

The FTC says third parties were up to this old trick and that T-Mobile was aware of it but then obfuscated the billing so that customers couldn’t work out where the extra charges had crept into the equation. The FTC has filed a complaint that T-Mobile had been charging many of its customers $10 monthly for subscriptions to things like  ringtones, wallpaper, horoscopes and so on.
Similar things happened in the UK and other markets where children, especially, contracted the premium SMS services not understanding that the charges would keep on coming unless explicitly stopped - and that was sometimes easier said than done. In my opinion these episodes represented some of the worst chapters in the mobile industry’s short history.

As things have turned out in the US, T-Mobile dropped the premium SMS services last year since they were causing so much customer ill-will. Until then, it claims, the cramming was widely practised by all the carriers. Not much of an excuse, especially considering that active steps appear to have been taken by T-Mobile to make the  billing, lets say, non-transparent. Looks like T-Mobile is a carrier after all. Welcome back. 

Related Topics
  • Analysis & Opinion,
  • News,
  • Telco & CSP

More Like This

Digital Platforms & Services

What’s up with… BT, Amazon, T-Mobile US

Jul 1, 2022

Digital Platforms & Services

BT remains home of UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League and UEFA Europa Conference League until 2027

Jul 1, 2022

5G

Nokia supports DISH Wireless launch of world’s first telco network using 5G Standalone Core on AWS public cloud

Jul 1, 2022

Access Evolution

Telefónica Tech to monitor security in industrial and IoT environments

Jul 1, 2022

Access Evolution

India to be second-largest fibre broadband market by 2030: Point Topic

Jun 30, 2022

Email Newsletters

Stay up to date with the latest industry developments: sign up to receive TelecomTV's top news and videos plus exclusive subscriber-only content direct to your inbox – including our daily news briefing and weekly wrap.

Subscribe

Top Picks

Highlights of our content from across TelecomTV today

10:14

Executive Interview: Vodafone’s Lucia De Miguel Albertos on the ultimate RAN Intelligent Controller

39:34

Figuring out the TCO of Open RAN

6:47

Dell's Role in Open RAN

4:24

Executive Interview: Neil McRae on BT's Open RAN Plans

TelecomTV
Company
  • About Us
  • Media Kit
  • Contact Us
Our Brands
  • DSP Leaders World Forum
  • Great Telco Debate
  • TelecomTV Events
Get In Touch
[email protected]
+44 (0) 207 448 1070
Connect With Us
  • Privacy
  • Cookies
  • Terms of Use
  • Legal Notices
  • Help

TelecomTV is produced by the team at Decisive Media.

© Decisive Media Limited 2022. All rights reserved. All brands and products are the trademarks of their respective holder(s).