Global Tel*Link Seeks FCC Stay of Inmate Calling Service Rate Caps

likely to succeed in its legal challenge to the order on its merits, the company would otherwise suffer irreparable harm, and the balance of equities favors a stay, GTL said in a petition filed Tuesday at the commission in docket 12-375. "The reviewing court will likely set aside the rate caps, first of all, because -- as the Commission itself acknowledged -- they do not allow ICS providers to recover the legitimate costs of providing service in correctional institutions," GTL said. "To obtain permission to place their equipment inside prisons and jails, ICS providers must pay state and local authorities location rents or site commissions. The Commission recognized that the rate caps it set do not allow ICS providers to recover those location rents," the company said. The caps thus violate (1) Section 276(b)(1)(A) of the Communications Act requiring the FCC to ensure ICS providers are fairly compensated for all calls from their payphones, (2) Section 201 requiring "just and reasonable" rates, and (3) the U.S. Constitution, which bars "confiscatory rates," GTL said. It said the FCC "expressed its distaste" for site-commission payments to correctional authorities but declined to prohibit them. "The Commission cannot endorse site commissions -- however reluctantly -- yet prevent ICS providers from recovering that real cost of providing service," said GTL. The company said it would suffer irreparable harm without a stay because it wouldn't be able to recover the revenue lost due to the "unlawful, confiscatory rates." The FCC had no comment, a spokeswoman said. Securus Technologies, which had also said it would seek a stay, also had no comment.