Ill. District Court Sets Briefing Schedule in T-Mobile Fake Ring Tones Case

Plaintiffs Craigville Telephone and Consolidated Telephone’s motion to compel in their fake ring tones lawsuit against T-Mobile is due by June 9, and T-Mobile’s opposition is due June 23, said a court order (docket 1:19-cv-07190) in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago. T-Mobile’s motion to compel is due June 6 and Craigville’s opposition is due by June 19, it said. T-Mobile is alleged to have inserted fake ring tones instead of connecting calls to rural areas in the U.S. that have expensive routing fees. The fake tone would make the caller think the recipient didn’t answer, though the call hadn't been delivered. The class action was filed in 2019. T-Mobile agreed in a 2018 consent decree to pay $40 million to resolve an FCC investigation into whether it used the fake ring tones, and the plaintiffs argue some of the documents associated with that investigation are among materials T-Mobile wants kept under seal (see 2305170009). T-Mobile’s May 4 brief on discovery documents it designated as confidential under the protective order in the class action “fails to show that its confidentiality designations are valid,” said the plaintiffs’ response.