FCC Clears CenturyLink Prison Phone Unit's Sale to ICSolutions

The FCC approved Embarq's sale of CenturyLink Public Communications to Inmate Calling Solutions (ICSolutions). The subsidiary of Embarq, which itself is a subsidiary of CenturyLink, provides inmate calling services to correctional facilities in Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin. “Because CenturyLink Public Communications relies on ICSolutions as its subcontractor for the correctional facility contracts ... we are persuaded by Applicants’ assertion that incarcerated individuals and their families will continue to receive all services post-merger without disruption and without the potential loss of an independent competitor,” the Wireline and International bureaus said in the order in docket 20-150 in Wednesday's Daily Digest: “ICSolutions will be better positioned to more effectively competitively bid for service contracts, especially for larger state department of corrections contracts.” The bureaus received no opposition to the application or other comments on its June 25 public notice (see 2006260002).