Telecommunication

There's widespread agreement that prisoners in the US pay far too much for phone calls, but several of the Federal Communications Commission's attempts to cap those prices have been blocked in court. One of the biggest obstacles is that phone companies have to pay large "site commissions" to prisons and jails in order to win the exclusive right to offer phone service to inmates. Prison phone company Correct Solutions Group has a contract with the Union Parish Detention Center that requires it to pay the jail a commission of 60 percent of the total gross revenue of phone calls.

Call prices have sometimes hit $14 a minute because of the high per-minute rates and various fees applied to inmate calls, according to the FCC. In October 2015, the FCC voted to impose caps of 11¢ to 22¢ per minute on all interstate and intrastate inmate calling prices. The October 2015 ruling did not ban site commissions, but the FCC wanted the new limits to encourage a shift away from the payments. If the FCC's proposed caps had fully taken effect, inmates would today be paying much lower prices, and prisons and jails would likely have had to accept lower commission payments. But after voting to limit prices, the FCC repeatedly had to go back to the drawing board when judges threw out certain parts of the price cap rulings.

[Commentary] No matter how valuable the Lifeline program is in theory, it’s wasting millions of taxpayer dollars. It allows the telecommunications carriers who profit from the program to verify eligibility for their participants — and too many are turning a blind eye. Lifeline was poorly structured and badly executed from the start. The goal of providing low-income Americans help regaining their economic footing with phone and broadband service is worthwhile and admirable — but that doesn’t mean that any plan doing that is worthy of unequivocal support.

Sidestepping the problems in this terribly run program is a disservice to all participants as well as those footing the bill, and will endanger the program’s existence if we allow it to continue. I’ll remain engaged on this issue and committed to serious changes. In the meantime, I encourage my party, as well as my friends from across the aisle, to join me in pushing for oversight and accountability regardless of its political convenience.

[Commentary] There is one aspect of criminal justice reform that the current administration has tragically ignored: the broken market for inmate calling services.

Inmate calling is a horribly malfunctioning system that not only adversely impacts inmates and their families, but our society as a whole. Providers of inmate calling services compete and win business not based on being the lowest-cost bidder, as is customary for most requests for proposals to governmental agencies. Rather, they win contracts based on which of them is willing to pay the most in kickbacks (they call them “commissions”) to those correctional facilities. The result is not the lowest cost service for inmates and their families, but instead, rates for phone calls that have been as high as $14 per minute.

The FCC should end the practice of picking and choosing, ignoring and punting, while an unarguably dysfunctional market regime preys on the most vulnerable. The FCC can and should adopt targeted rules to address the costs of interstate calls. States and localities can and should reform their practices to cap rates and eliminate kickbacks. And Congress can and should enact a legislative solution that provides a firm legal foundation for further inmate calling reforms. Private litigation could also attack these practices, and some lawsuits have already been filed. But policymakers should also work to help new services and technologies enter the marketplace, to increase competition and lower prices. There is no good policy reason why an inmate’s family should have to use the most antiquated and expensive systems to communicate with loved ones when viable alternatives exist. The time to act is now.

Two senators are pushing a robocaller to explain how he ran his operation, which was subject to the largest-ever fine handed down by the Federal Communications Commission on the matter.

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune (R-SD) and Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection Jerry Moran (R-KS) sent a letter to Adrian Abramovich on Oct 11, asking him to explain how his robocalling operation worked and what he’s doing to mitigate any harm he may have caused. In June, the FCC fined Abramovich $122 million for his robocall company, which allegedly conducted almost 100 million illegal automated calls attempting to lure individuals into buying vacation packages and time shares. To whom Abramovich directed the calls is unclear, but robocall scams often target vulnerable groups like the elderly who may not be aware of what they’re agreeing to. The FCC said that Abramovich’s calls were uniquely problematic because they “disrupted the operations of an emergency medical paging provider.” “For lawmakers, the FCC’s identification of an alleged spoofing mastermind offers the opportunity to learn specific information about operations, partners, and the business model, which may provide valuable insight for future legislation,” Chairman Thune said.

Nearly three weeks after Hurricane Maria tore through the Caribbean, Puerto Rico is still mostly an island deleted from the present and pushed back a century or so—with little clean water, little electric power, and almost no telecommunications. For telecom, the biggest problem is the lack of power, because most of the island’s transmission lines were knocked out.

“We have to reconstruct the power grid as if we were dropping into the middle of the desert and starting from scratch,” says Luis Romero, vice president of the Puerto Rico Telecommunications Alliance. “Then on top of that would go the telecommunications services.” Puerto Rico’s telecom carriers, who are fiercely competitive, have banded together “to provide communication to people in despair,” Romero says. “But basically we’re on our own here.” And no one knows what’ll happen when the diesel that’s keeping all those generators humming runs out.

Public Knowledge, Consumer Federation of America, and New Networks Institute filed an amicus brief in the US Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit requesting the Court to overturn and remand the Federal Communications Commission’s recent Business Data Services deregulation Order. Public Knowledge argues that the agency’s competition analysis, which found that duopoly competition -- real or potential -- is “sufficient” to discipline market power and high prices in the BDS market, is ludicrous. The Commission’s analysis is inconsistent with competition law and unsupported by the record, and the Order will lead to higher prices in the BDS market, which consumers will ultimately pay.

September 2017 will long be remembered for devastating storms. Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria each caused billions of dollars in damage, claimed the lives of many Americans, and disrupted millions more. They also reminded us how important communications networks can be during emergencies—and that the Federal Communications Commission has a role to play in helping keep people safe.

I recently had the chance to see these factors at play firsthand. I traveled to South Florida with Commissioner Mignon Clyburn to survey the impact of Hurricane Irma. I then flew directly to Indiana, where I resumed my ongoing tour of U.S. communities impacted by the digital divide...Next Generation 911 offers great potential for the future of public safety. But too many jurisdictions are struggling with how to transition from their legacy systems to NG911. There are significant costs involved, not to mention other issues, like the need for enhanced training of 911 call takers and ensuring that NG911 deployment is standards-based. All of us need to think creatively about how to address these issues going forward.

Hurricane Maria has had a catastrophic impact on communications networks in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. The Federal Communications Commission has been doing a lot to assist with repair and restoration—and that work continues. That’s why I am proposing that the FCC use its Universal Service Fund to help with these efforts. Responding to natural disasters has consumed the bulk of the FCC’s time and attention this season. But there are other important areas under our jurisdiction, and we’ll cover some of them at our upcoming meeting on October 24.

The Federal Communications Commission proposed a nearly $4 million fine against Neon Phone Service of Rockledge (FL) for “slamming” and “cramming.” The company appears to have violated Commission rules by switching customers’ long distance carriers without obtaining proper, verified authorization—an illegal practice called slamming. It also apparently added unauthorized charges onto consumers’ telephone bills—often referred to as cramming.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced that the following items are tentatively on the agenda for the October Open Commission Meeting scheduled for Tuesday, October 24, 2017:

Support for Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands – The Commission will consider an Order to clarify the use of high-cost universal service support and permit forward funding of support to aid in reconstruction of telecommunications networks damaged by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. (WC Docket No. 10-90)

Exemption to Calling Number Identification Service – The Commission will consider a Report and Order that would enable law enforcement and security personnel to obtain quick access to blocked Caller ID information needed to investigate threatening calls. It also would amend the Commission’s rules to allow non-public emergency services, such as private ambulance companies, to obtain blocked Caller ID information associated with calls requesting assistance. (CC Docket No. 91-281)

Nationwide Number Portability – The Commission will consider a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and Notice of Inquiry that proposes to amend the Commission’s rules as well as seeks comment on industry models to move toward complete nationwide number portability to promote competition between all service providers and increase network routing efficiencies. (WC Docket No. 17-244; WC Docket No. 13-97)

Promoting Investment in the 3550-3700 MHz Band – The Commission will consider a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would seek comment and propose changes to the Priority Access License rules in the 3550-3700 MHz (3.5 GHz) band to increase incentives for investment, encourage more efficient spectrum use, and promote faster and more widespread network deployments. (GN Docket No. 17-258)

Hearing Aid Compatibility and Volume Control – The Commission will consider a Report and Order and Order on Reconsideration on hearing aid compatibility (HAC) that would update the volume control standard for wireline telephones, extend wireline HAC requirements to cover telephones used with advanced communications services, adopt a volume control rule for wireless handsets, and delete from the Commission’s rules an obsolete wireless HAC standard. (CG Docket No. 13-46, WT Docket Nos. 07-250, 10-254)

Part 43 Reporting Requirements for U.S. Providers of International Services – The Commission will consider a Report and Order that would: (1) eliminate the Traffic and Revenue Reports and (2) streamline the Circuit Capacity Reports. (IB Docket Nos. 17-55 and 16-131)

Elimination of Main Studio Rule – The Commission will consider a Report and Order eliminating the rule that requires each AM, FM, and television broadcast station to maintain a main studio located in or near its community of license. (MB Docket No. 17-106)

Updates to Rules Governing Ancillary/Supplementary Services and Broadcast Public Notices – The Commission will consider a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that seeks comment on updates to Section 73.624(g) of its rules, which imposes certain reporting obligations for broadcasters relating to the provision of ancillary or supplementary services, and Section 73.3580, which requires public notice of the filing of broadcast applications, including through newspapers. (MB Docket Nos. 17-264, 17-105)