FCC Fines Top Carriers
The Federal Communications Commission proposed fines totaling more than $200 million on the nation’s largest wireless carriers for selling customer location data to third parties without their consent.
Under the FCC’s proposal, AT&T faces a $57 million fine, Verizon’s is $48 million, and Sprint would be on the hook for $12 million. T-Mobile faces the steepest fines, with the FCC proposing a penalty of more than $91 million on the Bellevue, Wash, company.
The FCC requires carriers to take “reasonable measures” to protect customers against third parties accessing their data without permission. Based on an investigation, the agency claims that all four carriers sold customer location data to third-party aggregators who then resold the information.
Dallas-Based AT&T Corp.
As of 2018, AT&T is ranked #9 on the Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by total revenue. AT&T’s total revenue for 2019 is listed as $181,756 billion, with a net income of $19,953 billion for 2018. So, a FCC fine of $57 million seems like a lot to consumers, but when you examine the company’s revenue, it doesn’t seem that harsh.
AT&T current management team includes 8 executives. AT&T’s current Chairman & CEO, Randall L. Stephenson received a salary of $32 million last year. AT&T’s No. 2 executive, John Stankey, who reports to Stephenson, salary rose from $16.6 million to $22.5 million.
Former AT&T telecom division chief, John Donovan received nearly $10 million in 2019 before his departure in August. The $10 million in compensation included a retirement bonus and other pay.
March 22, 2020
AT&T Creates $10 million Fund to Help Families and Educators Through Coronavirus Pandemic. The AT&T Distance Learning and Family Connections Fund is designed to help students learn from home as school closures continue indefinitely. The fund’s first contribution is a $1 million donation to online tutoring service Khan Academy. Khan Academy is a nonprofit organization that provides free online education resources and courses to students ages four to 18.
March 21, 2020
AT&T extends their original 80 hours of paid, excused time off to up to a total of 160 hours for employees that have specific needs and cannot fulfill their roles either at the workplace or from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.
AT&T says they will not terminate the service of any wireless, home phone or broadband residential or small business customer because of their inability to pay their bill due to disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
AT&T Corp. is dropping its plan to buy back $4 billion in stock over the next three months as the coronavirus pandemic reignites criticism of Fortune 500 companies’ repurchasing practices. In a regulatory filing Friday, the company said canceling its buyback agreement will allow it to “focus on continued investment in serving our customers, taking care of our employees and enhancing our network, including nationwide 5G.”
As of March 13, 2020, and for the next 60 days, AT&T will waive domestic wireless plan overage charges for data, voice or text for residential or small business wireless customers incurred because of economic hardship related to the coronavirus pandemic.