Blackstone Got Out of Trouble

Blackstone, a telecom company, has successfully fought the fine that the FCC brought against them. On February, Blackstone was charged with a $20,000 fine for failure to register with the FCC and pay the appropriate USF (Universal Service Fee). The Bureau is claiming they have made repeated requests of Blackstone to get in line and register but have received no response from Blackstone and no cooperation.

Blackstone apparently ignored requests from the FCC asking them to file and make certain types of paperwork available because they felt they are not a service provider, just a phone card distributor, so therefore there was no need to file. Like many other prepaid calling cards distributors, they have made claims as such to their end users (common practice).

While the $20,000 fine may not look like a lot, the amount was actualy increased significantly from the base fine for this type of infraction due to Blackstone's complete lack of response or cooperation with the Bureau. However, Blackstone has since provided the paper work proving that they are not a long distance carrier, just a distributor, and as a result the $20,000 fine has been removed and the matter dropped.

Source:
http://www.fcc.gov/eb/Orders/2007/DA-07-3235A1.html