US Telco Fined $3 Million in Domain Renewal Blunder

M

monkeymagick

[H]News
Joined
Jun 22, 2008
Messages
480
The Federal Communications Commission levied a fine of $3 million to Sorenson Communcations for failing to renew a domain name vital to the local 911 emergency service. The Utah based telecommunications provider failed to notice the domain's expiration causing the Video Relay System to quit on them leaving deaf people and others with vocal disabilities unable to reach 911 operations for close to 3 days.

The settlement sum is massive, but of it, only $252,000 is an actual fine, going to the FCC. The rest of the fee -- $2.7 million -- is a restitution Sorensen must give back to the FCC's TRSF division.

The FCC uses the TRSF (Telecommunications Relay Services Fund) to subsidize VRS systems across the country. The $2.7 million Sorensen has to give back represents the money the telco received from the US government to run the 911 VRS system and to rent its dedicated bandwidth for the three days the system went down.
 
Last edited:
The fuck? 2.7million to run an unutilised (it was unnoticed for 3 days) service for that period? I think they be overcharging in the range of 50000%
 
Wait a second... am I misunderstanding what this means? They need to repay the government $2.7M for the 3 days the service wasn't available because that's "the money the telco received from the US government to run the 911 VRS system and to rent its dedicated bandwidth for the three days the system went down". Does this mean the US government is paying this company as follows:

$2,700,000 / 3 days = $900,000 per day * 365 = $328,500,000 per year?

If so... HOLY CRAP! I realize this service is vital for deaf or vocally challenged residents, but that seems like a cost which could be reigned in or, possibly, done cheaper by another company.
 
Skirge01 said:
Wait a second... am I misunderstanding what this means? They need to repay the government $2.7M for the 3 days the service wasn't available because that's "the money the telco received from the US government to run the 911 VRS system and to rent its dedicated bandwidth for the three days the system went down". Does this mean the US government is paying this company as follows:

$2,700,000 / 3 days = $900,000 per day * 365 = $328,500,000 per year?

If so... HOLY CRAP! I realize this service is vital for deaf or vocally challenged residents, but that seems like a cost which could be reigned in or, possibly, done cheaper by another company.
Click to expand...
it says Local in the OP.

I doubt its that much if its local, or you would need to times that amount by thousands?
 
Skirge01 said:
Wait a second... am I misunderstanding what this means? They need to repay the government $2.7M for the 3 days the service wasn't available because that's "the money the telco received from the US government to run the 911 VRS system and to rent its dedicated bandwidth for the three days the system went down". Does this mean the US government is paying this company as follows:

$2,700,000 / 3 days = $900,000 per day * 365 = $328,500,000 per year?

If so... HOLY CRAP! I realize this service is vital for deaf or vocally challenged residents, but that seems like a cost which could be reigned in or, possibly, done cheaper by another company.
Click to expand...

Yeah, something there doesn't add up. I could understand if the was the other way around and $2.7M was the fine and $252,000 was the payback, but to be the other way around is WAY too much. Unless that is something like a yearly amount or something like that. Maybe they are demanding all the money they paid back for the year. Sounds about right in this day and age for outages. Somebody pays $50 / month for services and if they have a 2 hour outage they think they deserve at least $40 as a outage credit. Although with something that major I could see some type of contract statement where they have to provide X amount of up time and failure to do so renders them without pay for the service for a certain amount of time.
 
911 Services should NOT have 3 day outages.... just saying. They got slapped with a fine that they'll go to court over....
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top