T-Mobile is in trouble again. Earlier this year the national wireless carrier was accused of refusing to provide direct connections with carriers as part of claims it was involved in access arbitrage schemes with intermediate carriers. That issue has yet to be settled. Now, the controversial company has agreed to pay $40 million to the U.S. Treasury as part of a Consent Decree with the FCC for inserting false ring tones in calls to rural customers that originated over its network. It should have been a lot more!

According to the Commission, carriers that originate calls for their customers are prohibited from “convey[ing] a ringing indication to the calling party until the terminating provider has signaled that the called party is being alerted to an incoming call, such as by ringing"