ISP Sues T-Mobile for $117M, Claiming 'Willful Interference' From 5G Transmissions

Wireless internet service provider Bloosurf, valued at $30 million in 2021, has lost "half its customers" and "significant" revenue and cash flow due to T-Mobile's interference, alleged Bloosurf’s complaint Wednesday (docket 8:24-cv-01047) in U.S. District Court for Maryland in Greenbelt in which it seeks $116 million in damages.

Bloosurf has been unable to grow in the broadband market for the past three years due to T-Mobile’s “wanton and willful interference with the ISP's business operations and broadcast transmissions,” said the complaint. Bloosurf, which serves businesses and residents in rural areas in Maryland, Delaware and Virginia, had a projected valuation of $116.6 million for 2023, but that valuation has “diminished to a de minimis amount,” due to T-Mobile’s “various interferences,” it said.

The lawsuit alleges T-Mobile violated 47 U.S.C. Section 333, which states that “No person shall willfully or maliciously interfere with or cause interference to any radio communications of any station licensed or authorized by or under this chapter or operated by the United States Government.” The FCC has interpreted the statute to include wireless signals and broadband distribution, the complaint said, citing Johnson v. American Towers.

T-Mobile knew that from 2011 to the present, Bloosurf has had exclusive rights to broadcast in its allotted educational broadband service (EBS) frequency band, yet it “chose to broadcast, unapproved, within Bloosurf’s band anyway,” alleged the complaint. T-Mobile knew about Bloosurf’s contracts to provide internet and phone service to customers in Virginia, Maryland and Delaware and intentionally interfered with the ISP’s exclusive spectrum via its “unauthorized 5G transmissions and 4G transmissions outside its FCC allotted frequencies,” the complaint said.

Through its Sprint acquisition, T-Mobile had knowledge of Bloosurf’s business and business relationships in the area, said the complaint. The parties had coordinated their broadcasting on a specific subframe per an informal agreement since at least 2015 to prevent interference, a “known industry standard,” it said.

A 2015 agreement between Bloosurf and Sprint stipulated that the two companies would transmit their respective signals within the same “subframe” to prevent interference between neighboring towers, the complaint said. When T-Mobile bought Sprint in 2020, it also acquired Sprint’s frequency bands that bordered Bloosuf’s service territory, including narrow “middle” frequency bands between Bloosurf’s EBS bands, it said.

In light of those bands' proximity to Bloosurf’s frequencies, T-Mobile isn’t able to maximize the use of the narrow bands without obtaining exclusive rights to the EBS spectrum exclusively held by Bloosurf, or it will risk “bleed over” into Bloosurf’s frequencies, the complaint said. That’s an issue Sprint faced in 2016 and 2017 when the carrier tried to negotiate a spectrum swap with Bloosurf “to salvage the unused frequencies,” but its offer price was too low and Bloosurf chose instead to use its EBS spectrum “to bid in the FCC CAF 2 tender, which it won in 2018," it said. The EBS licenses Bloosurf leases are “key frequency bands which are an obstacle to T-Mobile’s strategy to comprehensively cover the Delmarva region with its 4G and 5G Network,” the complaint said.

T-Mobile knew its 5G network would interfere with 4G networks broadcasting on a “previously agreed 'special subframe’ configuration, and switched its 4G configuration to mitigate its own 5G interference without consulting or notifying Bloosurf,” the complaint said. From 2020 forward, T-Mobile knew Bloosurf was broadcasting on a “Subframe 2” configuration for its wireless internet coverage, it said.

T-Mobile’s 4G transmission from its Seaford, Delaware, cellsite “trespassed a whole 2.4 MHz within Bloosurf’s EBS frequency range” over many months, “if not years,” causing “severe interference and disconnection within Bloosurf’s cell tower network,” the complaint alleged. That 4G transmission was broadcasting at “20 decibels too high, further drowning out similar Bloosurf 4G signals in the area, causing severe interference and disconnection within Bloosurf’s cell tower network,” it said.

In late 2020, Bloosurf began to receive complaints about slow output and/or disconnection from the internet distributed through its EBS network from its customers on Maryland's Eastern Shore, who began canceling their accounts “en masse,” the complaint said. From 2021 to 2023, Bloosurf customers closed their accounts at a rate as high as 10 households per week, it said.

In December 2020, Bloosurf began measuring the interference through a spectrum analyzer, which showed “persistent interference” throughout the network, the complaint. In January, it alerted T-Mobile’s engineering team about the interference and sought its cooperation to find the source, it said. T-Mobile was aware it was transmitting on frequencies that Bloosurf has the exclusive right to broadcast on but “failed to disclose it,” it said.

T-Mobile agreed to run tests on two towers, without disclosing the locations, but the tests -- “not made in good faith” -- were “intended to dissuade Bloosurf from understanding the true source of the interference,” the complaint said. On Dec. 29, the carrier began updating its broadcast towers to transmit on “new 5G equipment” in Cordova, Maryland, and other areas, knowing that the 5G deployment “would interfere with on-going transmissions by Bloosurf” on its existing EBS spectrum, it said. T-Mobile didn’t disclose the 5G transmission at the time, it said.

After the FCC's early testing to determine the cause of interference was inconclusive, its enforcement bureau began a more thorough investigation in May 2021, when it identified a T-Mobile tower within Bloosurf’s coverage area “that was not disclosed or tested” during February tests, the complaint said. Around May 28, 2021, after conducting an on-site test of T-Mobile’s Seaford site tower, “the FCC concluded that the interference with Bloosurf’s signal was caused by T-Mobile,” said the complaint.

Two months later, in the second phase of its investigation, the FCC detected a "powerful 5G signal" operating in Cordova, Maryland, near five Bloosurf towers, the complaint said. The agency asked T-Mobile if the signal belonged to the carrier, which "finally conceded that it was the source of the 5G transmission at Cordova," and that it had been transmitting 5G signals since Dec. 29, it said. T-Mobile claimed it previously tested the site and concluded it wasn't the cause of the Bloosurf interference, the complaint said.

As a result of T-Mobile’s interference, Bloosurf has lost a “massive portion” of its customer base and the ability to obtain new customers due to the “unreliability” of its network; been deemed “non-compliant” by the FCC due to the “volatility” in its network and thus unable to bid on future state contracts and federal grants; and used all its resources to address the interference, leaving it unable to address other business concerns, the complaint said.

Bloosurf alleges that T-Mobile’s interference was “further calculated” to prevent it from maintaining the EBS spectrum and to force it to “thus disband its operations on the Eastern Shore,” so that T-Mobile could gain control over the broadband market in the area. The interference was “calculated to make Bloosurf lose existing and potential customers out of frustration” so that the customers would switch to T-Mobile as their internet and phone service provider, it said.

In addition to federal allegations, Bloosurf brings state law claims. Beyond compensatory damages of $116 million, the plaintiff seeks punitive damages, attorneys’ fees and costs, and pre- and post-judgment interest. A T-Mobile spokesperson said the company has "nothing to add at this time," in a Friday email.