Updated May 22, 2008:

The world of Telecom sees no shortage of lawsuits. Each cellular provider in the US gets slapped with suits. Typically the suits come in the following forms:

1. Patent Infringement - We saw this recently with the iPhone and several companies and individuals trying to sue Apple/AT&T for violating patents.

2. Telecom Rivalry - Whether it is Verizon suing Sprint, Sprint suing AT&T, or whatever the case, US telecom companies tend to sue each other for various reasons.

3. Class Action - Individuals get fed up with hidden charges, contracts, and other injustices that telecom has been getting away with. These individuals find it easy to get others to team up with and sue these companies. Some do it for money, some do it out of principle.

My goal is to provide you with some of the current lawsuits going on in the world of Telecom. I will try to keep this as up-to-date as possible. It’s hard to keep up with them all, but several of them are worth reading up on. Each suit contains a link to details on what exactly the suit is all about. Enjoy!

AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, etc. - Class Action Suit against unauthorized texting. Customers upset at carriers for not “offering its customers the opportunity to avoid such charges by opting out of text messaging and refusing to disable its customers’ text messaging service.”

T-Mobile - May 2008 - Sued over charging pay-per-use for incoming SMS and not blocking SMS if customer requests it

Sprint - May 2008 - Sued over unauthorized mobile content, such as ringtones, sports scores and weather reports

Sprint - May 2008 - Sued by workers over mismanagement of pension plans

Verizon and Alltel - April 2008 - Violation of Fair Credit Reporting Act, falsely report disputed debt on credit report

Sprint - May 2008 - Sued by Sprint affiliate iPCS over Clearwire/WiMax merger

Verizon - May 2008 - Sued by parents of 14-year old girl assaulted by man she met through mobile social network

Sprint - April 2008 - Sued by Verizon for not paying $10 million in interconnection charges

Verizon, Sprint, and AT&T - March 2008 - Class Action suing against text message gambling for shows such as “Deal or No Deal”.