AT&T Pays Additional $3.5 Million to Resolve TRS Complaint

According to the Justice Department, AT&T has paid an additional $3.5 million to wrap up its settlement, announced last May, of DOJ charges it knowingly overbilled the Telecommunications Relay Services Fund (TRS) which provides IP voice services for calls placed on behalf of the hearing or speech impaired. AT&T in May 2013 paid $18.25 million of the settlement, which had to do with how AT&T verified the users of the service per a 2008 FCC order to register all callers and verify their information. DOJ said that some of those verifications used "nonsensical" names or addresses including random collections of letters -- "jhgfajhs" for example -- but AT&T verified them anyway.