Verizon Agrees To $5 Million Settlement In Rural Call Completion Investigation

Verizon has agreed to a $5 million settlement to resolve a Federal Communications Commission inquiry into the company’s failure to investigate whether rural customers could receive long distance or wireless calls to landline phones.

The inquiry, led by the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau, centered on whether, over a period of many months in 2013, Verizon failed to investigate evidence of low call answer rates to 26 different rural areas across the country. Verizon will pay a fine of $2 million and will implement a compliance plan in which it commits to spend an additional $3 million over the next three years to improve call completion to rural areas across the country.