The text of the FCC’s inmate calling service...
The text of the FCC’s inmate calling service order was released Thursday, about seven weeks after a divided FCC voted 2-1 to limit the rates that ICS providers can charge prisoners to make interstate calls. The Communications Act’s requirement of…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
just and reasonable rates applies to “all Americans,” the order said (http://fcc.us/1asJlJt): “There is no exception in the statute for those who are incarcerated or their families.” The order requires ICS providers to charge “cost-based rates” to inmates and their families, and requires all ICS providers to submit data on their underlying costs “so that the Commission can develop a permanent rate structure.” Commissioner Ajit Pai released a 21-page dissenting statement (http://fcc.us/1911dxM) challenging the legality of the order. Its “full-scale rate-of-return regulation” will not survive judicial review, he said. Other than “a jejune request for comment on ‘any other proposals,'” the commission “did not apprise stakeholders that rate-of-return regulation was under consideration,” Pai said, calling the order “arbitrary and capricious in light of the evidence contained in the record.”