WELCOME

This includes the cost of having a table on the

June 1, 2017 by Catherine Pope

This includes the cost of having a table on the ground floor, renting out the hotel, and using the Trump International Hotel for meetings, according to T-Mobile's letter. T-Mobile's letter does not cite any other government agencies. The letter, which also received the backing of House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA), also found that T-Mobile is receiving "a large number of calls" for the merger.

If this is the first time that an organization has been sued by a telecom company over its privacy policies, it is the first time that the telecom sector has received a large amount of federal money for its use of its cellular network. In 2009, the government awarded T-Mobile $5.6 million to settle an antitrust lawsuit that claimed that T-Mobile had violated its obligations under the Communications Decency Act to notify customers of the availability of their cellular service. It also awarded $1.5 million to settle the case.

T-Mobile has spent $195,000 at President Trump's Hotel in Washington, DC, over the past 10 months while it has lobbied for government approval of its proposed merger with Sprint. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

For its part, Sprint has maintained that it has received no such largesse from the government and that its practices in the telecommunications industry are compliant with the Communications Decency Act. "As we have explained before, there has been no improper, unreasonable or unconstitutional conduct by T-Mobile," said Eric Stephenson, vice president for public policy at the Cellular Telecommunications and Information Services Association (CITIA), in a statement.

[T-Mobile and Sprint are among the nation's biggest telecom companies]

Since then, T-Mobile has been the subject of intense pressure from the telecom industry. The company faced allegations that it engaged in unfair practices and that it had improperly throttled customers. A Citi report also accused T-Mobile of violating the Communications Decency Act.

But while T-Mobile has received the support of the telecom industry, it still feels its privacy practices are not subject to the antitrust laws. "We are fully committed to continuing to maintain our privacy policies in full compliance with the laws in relation to any claims for damages from such activity," a spokesperson with T-Mobile told the Financial Times. "Our privacy policies reflect our values and that's why we have not taken any action to enforce any of these policies. However, we will continue to maintain our existing privacy policy to protect customers' data and our customers' privacy and