Chairman Carr Acts to Address Unintended Consequences of 2024 IPCS Order

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr announced that the agency’s Wireline Competition Bureau has taken action to address the consequences stemming from the Commission’s 2024 decision on Incarcerated People’s Communications Services. The order extends the deadlines by which IPCS providers must comply with certain rules adopted in the 2024 IPCS Order until April 1, 2027 or any alternative date the FCC sets as part of further action. The 2024 IPCS Order expanded the Commission’s regulation of IPCS in response to the Martha Wright-Reed Just and Reasonable Communications Act of 2022. The Martha Wright-Reed Act amended the Communications Act of 1934 to require that the Commission “establish a compensation plan to ensure that all [IPCS] providers are fairly compensated, and all rates and charges are just and reasonable, for completed” IPCS communications.