Two of Georgia’s biggest counties have filed lawsuits seeking more than $50 million from a slew of telecommunications companies over what they say are unpaid 911 emergency service fees.
Cobb and Gwinnett counties say 15 companies failed to collect and share 911 fees from thousands of customers – most of them local businesses – depriving the counties of money needed to maintain emergency 911 response services. Cobb says it’s losing $9 million annually, while Gwinnett says it’s losing $8 million.
“This is just a case where profit of the (telephone) providers has had a detrimental effect on the safety of the citizens,” said former Gov. Roy Barnes, the counties’ attorney.
A representative for one of the companies, AT&T, said the complaint is being reviewed. A Verizon representative declined comment on pending litigation.
State law allows governments that provide 911 services to collect fees of up to $1.50 from each telephone customer. Telephone companies collect the fee on monthly bills, take a small cut to pay for administrative costs and give the rest to the governments.
In the lawsuits, Cobb and Gwinnett say the companies under-counted the number of telephone lines when assessing 911 fees. For example, some technology allows multiple phone lines to use a single telephone number simultaneously.
In an interview, Barnes said there is evidence that some companies deliberately failed to collect the fees and used the lower price to gain an advantage over competitors. He said the result has been less money for 911 equipment, employee training and other system improvements, and that the counties have had to subsidize their 911 systems with property taxes.
Among other things, the lawsuits accuse the companies of failing to collect the fees as required by state law and filing inaccurate reports on the number of voice lines that should have paid. The lawsuits seek to force the companies to turn over records that would allow the governments to audit the 911 fees. They also seek three years of uncollected fees from each company.
The counties filed 15 lawsuits in U.S. District Court in Atlanta and in the Superior Courts of Fulton and Gwinnett counties. They seek damages from BellSouth Telecommunications (AT&T Georgia), Verizon Enterprise Solutions, Bandwidth.com CLEC, Broadriver Communication, Broadvox, CBeyond Communications, Charter Fiberlink-Georgia, Earthlink, Inteliquent, Level 3 Communications, Network Telephone, Peerless Network of Georgia, Windstream Communications, XO Communications Services and YMax Communications.
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