Industry, Groups Disagree on Securus ICS Pilot Petition

Securus' subscription plans for inmate calling services "benefit incarcerated persons and their loved ones, as feedback on the pilot programs confirms," it said in comments Monday in docket 12-375 on a petition for waiver of FCC rules requiring interstate and indeterminate calls to be charged at per-minute rates (see 2111220049). Others sought additional information and asked the FCC to require that the plans be offered on a per-minute basis.

Request more data from Securus to "verify their claims" and "understand their impact on consumers," said a coalition of advocacy groups that included Worth Rises, United Church of Christ Media Justice Ministry, New America's Open Technology Institute, Wright Petitioners and National Consumer Law Center (see 2111180059). They backed seeking additional data sought by Worth Rises in its initial response to Securus' petition. The petition should be met with the “utmost skepticism,” said the Electronic Privacy Information Center, saying the company “has a long track record of harming inmates, their families, and their lawyers.”

Deny the petition, said the Prison Policy Initiative: It’s “hard to see the petition as anything other than a casual request to toss aside years of rulemaking so that Securus can boost its cashflow through a new source of predictable, recurring revenue.”

Several said Securus should be required to offer plans based on a per-minute basis if granted a waiver. Per-call subscriptions "incentivize providers to drop calls and force consumers to make additional calls," the advocacy groups said: “If a call is dropped, a subscription holder would be forced to use another call from their package and their effective per-minute rate would increase.”

Securus said it opted to set plans based on the number of calls "following consumers' input." The FCC "should not, at this stage, dictate the manner in which these programs are offered," it said. NCIC disagreed: The FCC “previously determined that a per-call, flat-rate fee was not in the public interest” because call lengths can vary. Require that Securus continues offering a per-minute plan and a "side-by-side comparison" of its subscription rates "at each facility where the subscription plan is offered,” NCIC said.

Securus suspended its pilot program after filing its petition. The plan had about 1,500 participants. The company has “begun to hear from correctional authorities and subscribers asking that the program be reinstated.”

Per-minute rates aren’t “always the consumer’s preferred option when greater accessibility is desired,” said Global Tel*Link's ViaPath, backing the petition. New disclosure or standardized billing requirements "are not needed in connection with the implementation of alternative rate options,” ViaPath said.