Global Tel*Link asked for a 60-day extension on data collection on inmate calling rates, which are due July 17, said a motion posted in docket 12-375 Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1kjjrvp). CenturyLink also requested a 60-day extension, in a motion posted Thursday (http://bit.ly/1lCKEcb). Global Tel*Link “does not routinely maintain the data requested by the Commission, and does not keep its books and records in the format of the Commission’s template spreadsheet or detailed instructions for categorizing and classifying the data,” the company’s motion said. The data collection “calls for extensive, highly detailed information organized in a very specific way, and compiling it will require an enormous amount of work,” said CenturyLink.

A filing by public interest groups and residents with the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) alleged that despite FCC caps on the price of inmates’ interstate calls last year (CD Aug 12 p3), inmate calls within the state remain “exorbitant.” The situation mirrors high rates in much of the rest of the country, where most states have not yet revamped intrastate calls, said the head of New Jersey Institute for Social Justice (NJISJ), one of the groups that filed Wednesday’s petition, and national prisoners’ rights advocates in interviews.

The largest inmate calling service (ICS) providers submitted Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) challenges in response to the FCC inmate calling order. That order required all ICS providers to submit information about their costs to provide interstate, intrastate toll and local service, and associated costs for interconnection fees, equipment investment and forecast data. Annual reporting requirements would add 101 hours per year for each ICS provider to respond, said the FCC. In comments to the Office of Management and Budget, ICS providers called the estimate unrealistically low.

An appeals court granted a partial stay of the FCC prison phone order (CD Aug 12 p1) Monday. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit kept in place the interim rate cap of 21 cents per minute for debit and prepaid calls, and 25 cents a minute for collect calls. It put on hold three other sections of the FCC’s rules: the requirement that rates and ancillary services be “cost-based”; low safe-harbor rates that presume charges are reasonable; and the annual reporting requirement.

Inmate calling service providers generally rejected in comments filed Friday the FCC’s proposed foray into regulating intrastate prison calls. They called it an impracticable plan to implement a uniform, national rate structure, in the face of complex security requirements that vary by location. The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) was also against the plan, which it said overstepped agency authority. Public interest groups were for the idea, arguing unjust rates occur just as frequently within state borders as across them.

CenturyLink asked the FCC to stay its inmate calling service (ICS) rules “pending a final decision by the courts,” in a petition filed Wednesday (http://bit.ly/18VEX7m). The order “imposes de facto rate-of-return regulation,” said CenturyLink, an ICS provider. CenturyLink said the order is unlikely to survive judicial scrutiny because the commission didn’t provide a “reasoned justification” for applying its new regime to existing ICS contracts. The commission also based its decision to impose rate-of-return regulation on “a misreading of judicial precedent, invoking a presumption in favor of rate-of-return regulation that lacks a legal basis,” CenturyLink said. CenturyLink said it was the fourth ICS provider to request a stay pending judicial review. The FCC last month denied requests for stay by Global Tel Link and Securus.

The FCC Wireline Bureau declined to stay the FCC inmate calling reform order Thursday. Global Tel*Link and Securus, top-two inmate calling service (ICS) providers, had asked the bureau to stay the decision pending judicial review. Bureau Chief Julie Veach said the ICS providers were unlikely to succeed on the merits of their challenge, rejecting arguments that the FCC didn’t provide adequate notice that it contemplated a cost-based rate cap structure (http://fcc.us/17NNM4z). Contrary to their characterization, “the adopted regulatory framework does not constitute traditional rate of return regulation,” which uses a “complex tariff filing process,” Veach said. Generally, the ICS providers also failed to prove the public interest supports grant of their stay petitions, the bureau chief said. Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said she was “pleased that the Wireline Competition Bureau denied requests to indefinitely stay or hold in abeyance reforms to provide just, reasonable and fair rates to inmates and their families.” Clyburn, who was acting chairwoman when the original order was approved, said she looks forward to working with the other commissioners “to adopt permanent rate caps to ensure that inmate calling service phone calls are just and reasonable as required by the statute."

Securus and Global Tel Link are trying to delay intrastate prison calling reform proceedings in Massachusetts and Alabama following the FCC’s NPRM released in September (CD Sept 27 p20). The companies filed motions in the Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Cable to hold in abeyance a petition from the Prisoners’ Legal Services of Massachusetts (PLS) for the department to rule on reform rates due to ongoing proceedings. The Alabama Public Service Commission granted an Oct. 29 request from Global Tel Link to extend the comment deadline for its revised rulemaking on inmate calling services (ICS), which ended Nov. 8, to Dec. 6 due to the “level of detail of the staff proposal and the time requirements for review of the staff proposal” in light of the FCC’s order and FNPRM (http://1.usa.gov/1bv5PeJ).

The nation’s two largest inmate calling service (ICS) providers asked the FCC to delay implementation of the prison calling order until they can seek judicial review. Global Tel*Link and Securus argued that in requiring ICS rates to be cost-based, the order imposes what is essentially rate-of-return regulation without warning. That’s contrary to administrative rules that require public notice and comment, they say. Reducing high per-minute calling rates to and from prisons was a major priority for acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn, who had been pushing for action since long before she became interim head of the agency.

Securus Technologies asked the Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Cable in a filing Monday to suspend its investigation on inmate calling services (http://1.usa.gov/1cc4bSh). This follows Global Tel Link’s similar motion Friday to the DTC citing the FCC’s ongoing rulemaking on interstate ICS rates (CD Oct 22 p11). The DTC should not “expend resources addressing the same issues” being considered by the FCC because the DTC could have to “redo” its decision after the FCC proceeding, said Securus. If the DTC denies Securus’s motion, the ICS company said it requests 10 days after the denial for interested parties to respond to the Prisoners’ Legal Services of Massachusetts petition to consider ICS changes.