Most of us probably take our hearing for granted. We buy new smartphones, headphones, and subscribe to music streaming services without giving it much thought, but when you are hearing impaired, suddenly you have fewer options that you would like. Now a few years ago, the FCC found that T-Mobile had “willfully and repeatedly” failed to comply with rules that required carriers offer customers a certain number of hearing aid compatible handsets.
T-Mobile had attempted to mitigate the fine that the FCC had imposed on them but it seems that they were unsuccessful. The FCC has since slapped T-Mobile with a fine of $819,000 and the carrier has 30 days to pay the fine, otherwise the case would be escalated to the Department of Justice where we reckon things might get a little more sticky.
According to the FCC’s mandate, carriers are required to have a certain number of HAC devices. The number of such devices required by Tier 1 carriers, such as T-Mobile, have changed over the years, but a minimum of 10 devices or at least 50% of a carrier’s breadth of devices should offer up the M3 acoustic coupling, or seven devices or 33% of a carrier’s portfolio has to offer a T3 inductive coupling.