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Chairman Carr waives new price caps until 2027, may raise them before then.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr testifies before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government at the Rayburn House Office Building on May 21, 2025 in Washington, DC. Credit: Getty Images | John McDonnell
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr has decided to let prisons and jails keep charging high prices for calling services until at least 2027, delaying implementation of rate caps approved last year when the FCC had a Democratic majority.
Carr's office announced the change yesterday, saying it was needed because of "negative, unintended consequences stemming from the Commission's 2024 decision on Incarcerated People's Communications Services (IPCS)... As a result of this waiver decision, the FCC's 2021 Order rate cap, site commission, and per-minute pricing rules will apply until April 1, 2027, unless the Commission sets an alternative date."
Commissioner Anna Gomez, the FCC's only Democrat, criticized the decision and pointed out that Congress mandated lower prices in the Martha Wright-Reed Act, which the FCC was tasked with implementing.
"Today, the FCC made the indefensible decision to ignore both the law and the will of Congress... rather than enforce the law, the Commission is now stalling, shielding a broken system that inflates costs and rewards kickbacks to correctional facilities at the expense of incarcerated individuals and their loved ones," Gomez said. "Instead of taking targeted action to address specific concerns, the FCC issued a blanket two-year waiver that undercuts the law's intent and postpones meaningful relief for millions of families. This is a blatant attempt to sidestep the law, and it will not go unchallenged in court."
Price caps have angered prison phone providers and operators of prisons and jails that get financial benefits from contracts with the prison telcos. One Arkansas jail ended phone service instead of complying with the rate caps.
Win for prison telco Securus
Carr issued a statement saying that "a number of institutions are or soon will be limiting the availability of IPCS due to concerns with the FCC's 2024 decision," and that "there is concerning evidence that the 2024 decision does not allow providers and institutions to properly consider public safety and security interests when facilitating these services." Carr's office said the delay is needed to "support the continued availability of IPCS for incarcerated people."
The evidence cited by the FCC includes letters from Securus Technologies, a prison phone company that has consistently fought attempts to lower prices. One Securus letter filed last week complained that "providers are subject to a number of redundant, onerous, and unworkable rules that the industry is straining to implement within unrealistic timeframes."
Securus previously received a waiver that applies to per-minute pricing rules for video calling. The FCC's December 2024 order on the waiver said it would give Securus time to complete "development of a new video IPCS platform that is able to bill on a per-minute basis."
Carr said the rate caps are "too low to cover the required safety measures" and were implemented "before state and local governments could secure alternative funding." Carr's office said the delay "will preserve the status quo while the Commission assesses potential changes to its IPCS rules based on the record that has developed," suggesting that the FCC might change the price caps before fully implementing them.
The FCC voted in July 2024 to lower price caps on prison phone calls and closed a loophole that allowed prison telecoms to charge high rates for intrastate calls, saying the action would end "exorbitant phone and video call rates that have burdened incarcerated people and their families for decades. Under the new rules, the cost of a 15-minute phone call will drop to $0.90 from as much as $11.35 in large jails and, in small jails, to $1.35 from $12.10." The Prison Policy Initiative has a breakdown of the changes here.
The Biden-era FCC set a general deadline of January 1, 2025, for all prisons and jails with average daily populations of 1,000 or more incarcerated people, and a deadline of April 1, 2025, for jails with average daily populations of less than 1,000. There was a provision that extended those deadlines to January and April of 2026 in cases where contracts with phone providers had to be altered.
Carr criticized rate caps last year
The FCC's 2024 decision was essentially unanimous, though Carr said at the time that he had concerns about the rate caps. The order got yes votes from three Democrats and Republican Nathan Simington, while Carr approved in part and concurred in part.
Carr expressed his partial support after then-Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel agreed to extend deadlines for providers whose contracts had to be renegotiated. "While I still have some concerns about the item's rate structure, I am grateful to my colleagues for working in good faith to address my feedback," Carr said when the FCC voted in July 2024.
The new FCC order delaying price caps said the commission may waive its rules when "the particular facts make strict compliance inconsistent with the public interest... we find that providers and facilities have established that they face unanticipated and ongoing challenges in providing safe and secure access to IPCS while implementing the rate cap, site commission, and per-minute pricing rules adopted in the 2024 IPCS Order. We find that these challenges constitute special circumstances that warrant a deviation from the Commission's rules."
The United Church of Christ criticized the "unilateral" decision, calling it "factually and legally wrong."
"The decision points to claims of strain in the industry, when many prisons and jails have been complying since the rules became effective in January," said Cheryl Leanza, policy advisor of the United Church of Christ Media Justice Ministry. "The FCC points to filings from Securus, which is currently the beneficiary of a waiver of the rules it requested and received last December. Incarcerated people deserve the protections adopted by the FCC as directed by Congress."
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr testifies before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government at the Rayburn House Office Building on May 21, 2025 in Washington, DC. Credit: Getty Images | John McDonnell
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr has decided to let prisons and jails keep charging high prices for calling services until at least 2027, delaying implementation of rate caps approved last year when the FCC had a Democratic majority.
Carr's office announced the change yesterday, saying it was needed because of "negative, unintended consequences stemming from the Commission's 2024 decision on Incarcerated People's Communications Services (IPCS)... As a result of this waiver decision, the FCC's 2021 Order rate cap, site commission, and per-minute pricing rules will apply until April 1, 2027, unless the Commission sets an alternative date."
Commissioner Anna Gomez, the FCC's only Democrat, criticized the decision and pointed out that Congress mandated lower prices in the Martha Wright-Reed Act, which the FCC was tasked with implementing.
"Today, the FCC made the indefensible decision to ignore both the law and the will of Congress... rather than enforce the law, the Commission is now stalling, shielding a broken system that inflates costs and rewards kickbacks to correctional facilities at the expense of incarcerated individuals and their loved ones," Gomez said. "Instead of taking targeted action to address specific concerns, the FCC issued a blanket two-year waiver that undercuts the law's intent and postpones meaningful relief for millions of families. This is a blatant attempt to sidestep the law, and it will not go unchallenged in court."
Price caps have angered prison phone providers and operators of prisons and jails that get financial benefits from contracts with the prison telcos. One Arkansas jail ended phone service instead of complying with the rate caps.
Win for prison telco Securus
Carr issued a statement saying that "a number of institutions are or soon will be limiting the availability of IPCS due to concerns with the FCC's 2024 decision," and that "there is concerning evidence that the 2024 decision does not allow providers and institutions to properly consider public safety and security interests when facilitating these services." Carr's office said the delay is needed to "support the continued availability of IPCS for incarcerated people."
The evidence cited by the FCC includes letters from Securus Technologies, a prison phone company that has consistently fought attempts to lower prices. One Securus letter filed last week complained that "providers are subject to a number of redundant, onerous, and unworkable rules that the industry is straining to implement within unrealistic timeframes."
Securus previously received a waiver that applies to per-minute pricing rules for video calling. The FCC's December 2024 order on the waiver said it would give Securus time to complete "development of a new video IPCS platform that is able to bill on a per-minute basis."
Carr said the rate caps are "too low to cover the required safety measures" and were implemented "before state and local governments could secure alternative funding." Carr's office said the delay "will preserve the status quo while the Commission assesses potential changes to its IPCS rules based on the record that has developed," suggesting that the FCC might change the price caps before fully implementing them.
The FCC voted in July 2024 to lower price caps on prison phone calls and closed a loophole that allowed prison telecoms to charge high rates for intrastate calls, saying the action would end "exorbitant phone and video call rates that have burdened incarcerated people and their families for decades. Under the new rules, the cost of a 15-minute phone call will drop to $0.90 from as much as $11.35 in large jails and, in small jails, to $1.35 from $12.10." The Prison Policy Initiative has a breakdown of the changes here.
The Biden-era FCC set a general deadline of January 1, 2025, for all prisons and jails with average daily populations of 1,000 or more incarcerated people, and a deadline of April 1, 2025, for jails with average daily populations of less than 1,000. There was a provision that extended those deadlines to January and April of 2026 in cases where contracts with phone providers had to be altered.
Carr criticized rate caps last year
The FCC's 2024 decision was essentially unanimous, though Carr said at the time that he had concerns about the rate caps. The order got yes votes from three Democrats and Republican Nathan Simington, while Carr approved in part and concurred in part.
Carr expressed his partial support after then-Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel agreed to extend deadlines for providers whose contracts had to be renegotiated. "While I still have some concerns about the item's rate structure, I am grateful to my colleagues for working in good faith to address my feedback," Carr said when the FCC voted in July 2024.
The new FCC order delaying price caps said the commission may waive its rules when "the particular facts make strict compliance inconsistent with the public interest... we find that providers and facilities have established that they face unanticipated and ongoing challenges in providing safe and secure access to IPCS while implementing the rate cap, site commission, and per-minute pricing rules adopted in the 2024 IPCS Order. We find that these challenges constitute special circumstances that warrant a deviation from the Commission's rules."
The United Church of Christ criticized the "unilateral" decision, calling it "factually and legally wrong."
"The decision points to claims of strain in the industry, when many prisons and jails have been complying since the rules became effective in January," said Cheryl Leanza, policy advisor of the United Church of Christ Media Justice Ministry. "The FCC points to filings from Securus, which is currently the beneficiary of a waiver of the rules it requested and received last December. Incarcerated people deserve the protections adopted by the FCC as directed by Congress."
