Securus Says ICSolutions Violating FCC Inmate Calling Order
Securus Technologies accused ICSolutions, another inmate calling service (ICS) provider, of paying "site commissions" to correctional facilities in violation of the FCC 2013 prison phone rate order. In a letter posted Tuesday to docket 12-375, Securus said the order prohibited…
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site commissions -- fees paid by ICS providers to correctional authorities to win exclusive phone contracts -- from being paid out of interstate calling rates. It said the Wireline Bureau had found FCC site-commission determinations hadn't been disrupted by a 2014 court partial stay of the order. Securus said it stopped paying site commissions on interstate calls, but it said ICSolutions was still making the payments on interstate calls to all of its correctional facility customers, citing a certified transcript of comments by ICSolutions Vice President Brendan Philbin to San Bernadino County officials: "All our calling is commissionable. [There's a] lot of confusion in the industry. A lot of suppliers are not paying commission on interstate calling. Not ICS. We have honored every single contract, and we continue to pay commissions on interstate. ... The FCC has done nothing forbidding payment of commission at all." The FCC said site commissions were "not part of the cost of providing ICS and therefore not compensable in interstate ICS rates." Reached by phone, Philbin had no comment.