Prisoner Advocates and Calling Industry Clash Over Further Rule Changes
The battle continues over whether the FCC should further tweak its incarcerated people’s communications services rules in a way that’s more friendly to IPCS providers. Comments were due this week in docket 23-62 on a Further NPRM approved as an add-on to the October order that rolled back 2024 rates. Commissioners unanimously approved those rates following congressional direction in the Martha Wright-Reed Act of 2022 (see 2501280053).
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FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, who dissented to last year’s revisions, argued at the time (see 2510280045) that the order was “an egregious transfer of wealth to greedy monopoly companies.” The Prison Policy Initiative (PPI) said the revised rates mean families will have to pay as much as 83% more for calls (see 2511040028).
Public interest groups are asking the FCC not to make further industry-friendly changes. The FCC shouldn’t adopt a permanent rate additive "to avoid significant duplication with costs already recovered in provider rate caps,” the groups said in comments filed this week in docket 12-375. The FCC should also retain a prohibition on ancillary service charges and minimum deposit requirements “because providers have failed to provide compelling evidence that these fees would not harm consumers,” they said.
The groups opposed an inflation adjustment factor for IPCS rates “because it departs from established rate-setting methodology” and urged more granular reporting in the next mandatory data collection, “including detailed breakdowns of fixed and variable costs, usage metrics, and cost allocations between regulated and non-regulated services.” The Wright Petitioners, Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, PPI, Public Knowledge, the United Church of Christ Media Justice Ministry and Worth Rises signed the filing.
The National Consumer Law Center questioned claims by providers that ancillary fees benefit customers, noting that no consumer is making that claim. “If providers incur significantly increased losses in the future, the FCC can address this issue by collecting updated data on these losses as part of its next mandatory data collection, and revising the rate-cap calculations as needed,” the center said.
Worth Rises questioned whether the FCC was justified in raising fees. The 2025 order cites concerns that the 2024 rate caps threatened the continued provision of IPCS, even though the record doesn't "provide support for these conclusions," the group said. It said the record cites only one verified instance of a terminating IPCS, Baxter County, Arkansas. “The Baxter County jail is run by an elected sheriff who has a long track record of antagonism and retribution directed at incarcerated people in his custody” and the suspension of prison calling in 2025 “appears to be pretextual because it is not otherwise defensible,” Worth Rises said. Since the FCC effectively raised fees, the sheriff has yet to reinstate IPCS, the group said.
The National Sheriffs Association countered that based on a survey of its members, current rates are too low for all but the largest jails. IPCS costs extremely small jails 45 cents per minute, as opposed to 32 cents at very small jails and 6 cents at the largest, NSA said. Its survey shows that tiered additives to current rates “are the only approach that can calibrate facility cost recovery to actual costs.”
Provider NCIC said that, given the current legal challenges to the 2024 rules and 2025 revisions, the FCC should hit pause on any changes tied to the FNPRM. Instead, the FCC should adopt rates NCIC proposed in its petition for reconsideration of the 2024 order or revert to 2021 rates, the company said. A challenge to the 2024 order is before the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which heard oral argument in October (see 2510070044). In December, the D.C. Circuit was selected by lottery to hear an appeal of the revised order and has yet to rule on whether to transfer the case to the 1st circuit (see 2512300047). NCIC said in the filing it opposes moving the case.
ICPS provider ViaPath said companies should be able to recover the costs of processing credit card payments and called on the commission to allow recovery of ancillary costs based on a per call rather than a per-minute basis. Permanent video rate caps should take into account “the significant costs associated with the provision of video IPCS and must be based on all available … data,” ViaPath said. There’s “no question that the provision of video IPCS requires costs above and beyond those incurred to provide voice IPCS,” the company said.