Carriers Face Fines for Coming Up Short on Hearing-Aid Compatible Handsets
The FCC is denying requests for hearing aid compatibility waivers filed on behalf of about 20 small- and medium-sized carriers, in an item circulating on the eighth floor of the commission. The carriers face tens of thousands of dollars in fines after failing to meet a requirement that they offer to their customers two compliant handsets by Sept. 16, 2006. A carrier that offers both CDMA and GSM service had to offer two handsets for each.
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More than 40 small and medium-sized carriers filed waiver requests for the 2006 deadline for offering handsets that meet the FCC’s inductive coupling requirements. The FCC also granted about 20 requests. It granted in part and denied in part two, dismissing a handful of others as no longer relevant.
“They probably drew a line in the sand on the date by which small carriers could get handsets,” said a regulatory attorney active on the issue. “They probably said you made it in time and you didn’t.” Small carriers faced a tough time getting acceptable handsets from vendors by the 2006 deadline, carriers said at the time. “It took a lot of small carriers until roughly January 2007” to get the handsets, the lawyer said: “Most diligent carriers were able to get them in a few months and that’s what they looked at, is diligence.”
“It’s hard to know until they put it out what the rationale is in granting some and denying other” waiver requests, said a second industry attorney.
Under FCC rules, small carriers that failed to offer a single acceptable handset before the deadline face $30,000 or more in fines. “For a small carrier, that’s not chump change,” a source said.