FCC Revises Provisions in Incarcerated People’s Communications Services Order

WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Oct. 28, the Federal Communications Commission announced that it will set new interim rate caps for Incarcerated People’s Communications Services (IPCS) that allow for the full inclusion of safety and security costs to correctional facilities and IPCS providers and ensure the ongoing availability of IPCS. 

The Martha Wright-Reed Just and Reasonable Communications Act, passed by Congress in 2022 and signed into law in 2023, removed the principal statutory limitations that had prevented the Commission from setting “just and reasonable” rates for all IPCS, including video visitation services. In 2024, the FCC issued an IPCS Order to officially enact all provisions of the Martha Wright-Reed Act. 

Among other actions, the 2024 implementation significantly lowered existing per-minute rate caps for audio IPCS and established initial interim per-minute rate caps for video IPCS, based on cost data submitted by IPCS providers, while permitting states to maintain IPCS rates lower than the Commission’s rate caps. 

In July, the FCC temporarily waived the deadlines for complying with the rate caps, site commission and per-minute pricing rules adopted in the 2024 Order. The FCC said at the time that this allowed IPCS providers and facilities time to address implementation challenges while the Commission began to assess potential changes to its IPCS rules based on developments following the 2024 Order’s adoption. 

Now, under the latest action, IPCS providers will be permitted to charge a higher interim per-minute rate as well as a uniform $0.02-per-minute interim rate additive separate from the revised caps to ensure recovery of correctional facilities’ costs of administering service.   

The action will also allow only billed minutes to determine the Commission’s rate caps, incorporating all safety and security measure expenses that IPCS providers reported incurring, and creating an additional rate cap tier for extremely small jails. Additionally, it will set a new uniform compliance date for providers, including for the Commission’s ban on site commissions, while seeking further comment on these issues. 

“Congress took an important step forward with the passage of the Martha Wright-Reed Act in 2022. That law addressed some of the statutory authority concerns that sank prior FCC efforts and directed the FCC to weigh two specific statutory goals — namely, reasonable rates and fair compensation,” said FCC Chairman Brendan Carr in a statement. 

Carr also said that the rules implemented in 2024 “resulted in serious, unintended consequences,” and that limiting how facilities could recover safety and security costs caused jails to scale back and even, in some cases, stop offering calling services.  

“Today’s action seeks to correct course by taking the lessons we’ve learned and applying them to create a new framework — one that we intend to be durable, predictable and lawful,” said Carr.