Securus Asks Court To Reject FCC Decision on Inmate Calling Service Rates
Securus Technologies challenged in court the FCC’s interpretation of a stay order from the court on inmate calling service rates released Wednesday. The FCC released a public notice that found that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit didn’t stay the definition of inmate calling from the 2015 ICS order, which included interstate and intrastate calling, so 2013 rates will apply to both (see 1603160068). Securus sought a modification of its initial stay.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
“To be very clear, the FCC has attempted a last-minute circumvention of the Court’s stay to make new rate effective today,” Securus told the court. “For this reason, Securus respectfully requests that the Court act on this Motion expeditiously, and if possible by March 24.” Earlier, judges stayed rules capping interstate and intrastate ICS rates at between 11 cents and 22 cents per minute and of a rule capping ancillary fees for single-call and related services in the consolidated case of Global Tel*Link v. FCC, No. 15-1461 (see 1603070055).
Securus assured the court it had reason to act. The FCC’s decision is “irrational and unsupportable, and will certainly be reversed on the merits after full review by this Court,” the company said. The PN is based on Rule 64.6030, in effect since 2013, which established interim rate caps on interstate calls, Securus said. “Rule 64.6030 has not been discussed by any Petitioner, Intervenor, or Respondent in this consolidated appeal, because the evident purpose of the rule was simply to keep existing interstate rate caps in place until new rules took effect,” the company said. The FCC’s action was also last minute, coming “nine hours before a purported new intrastate rate was to become effective.”
Securus also said it would face economic harm if the court doesn't act. Securus has spent "tens of thousands of person-hours” to implement last year’s second inmate rate order, the company said. “This implementation required significant discussion and renegotiation of approximately 1,500 contracts with correctional institutions as to rates, rate structure, and site commissions.” At this point the FCC “apparently expects Securus to go back and do all that over again, so that it can comply with so-called ‘interim rate caps’ for intrastate calls,” Securus said.
Andrew Schwartzman, senior counselor at the Georgetown Institute for Public Representation, disagreed. The FCC changed the definition of inmate calling service provider by eliminating the word interstate in its ICS order. Securus didn't ask the court to stay the new rule in so far as it changed the definition, Schwartzman said in an interview Thursday. “If you apply the new definition to the interim rate regulation, which was not at issue … it extends the coverage of the interim rate caps, the 21 and 15 cents [per minute], to intrastate calls,” he said. “The commission has no discretion not to enforce its rules.”
Schwartzman also said Securus’ cost claims are “hyperbolic.” As an ICS operator, all Securus had to do was prepare to apply rate caps to intrastate calls. "All they had to do to prepare ... they would have had to do anyway," he said. "Is that really relevant and irreparable harm?"
There's no fundamental difference in costs for ICS providers between completing an interstate or an intrastate call, said a lawyer who supports the FCC’s actions on ICS reform. “The only difference is that they no longer get to charge more than” $4 for a 15-minute intrastate phone call, the lawyer said.