Millicorp, Prison Telcos Renew Calls for FCC Action on Discount Inmate Calling

Millicorp officials met Thursday with the Enforcement Bureau, Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and aides to Commissioners Julius Genachowski, Meredith Baker and Michael Copps. Friday, they met with Commissioner Robert McDowell, General Counsel Austin Schlick and the Wireline Bureau. The FCC told Millicorp they have “serious interest” in resolving the matter, but have given no indication on timing, said Millicorp attorney William Cox in an interview. The Enforcement Bureau had asked Millicorp to file a formal request for investigation when the company first raised the matter earlier this year, but Cox said he didn’t know if an investigation was ongoing because the bureau doesn’t have to notify the requesting party.

Two eighth-floor commission officials said they were unaware of any FCC movement on the Securus petition. However, the Enforcement Bureau wouldn’t necessarily notify commissioners about any investigation until it wrapped it up, said one agency official. The Wireline Bureau’s pricing policy division is taking the lead on the Securus petition.

Cox said the FCC is dealing with limited resources due to work on the National Broadband Plan, but said the prison call issue isn’t complex and resolving it in Millicorp’s favor would “benefit a lot of citizens” who can’t afford high prison call price rates. Another attorney close to the proceeding said it’s unclear when the FCC will act, but the agency has enough resources to tackle the prison issue at the same time as the national plan.

Millicorp told the FCC that Securus and GTL are blocking ConsCallHome calls in an effort to stop bleeding revenue. “At least one Federal Bureau of Prisons official stated to counsel for Millicorp that the call blocking of Millicorp’s service by the federal [inmate payphone service] provider was required for funding reasons,” Millicorp said in an ex-parte filing last week. “A loss of IPS service provider revenues justification in no way supports or legitimizes the overt and unabashed call blocking of legitimate and FCC-regulated and compliant interconnected VOIP services in violation of the federal Telecommunications Act and applicable Commission orders and rules.”

Millicorp said its service is more secure than Vonage and Google Voice, services that prison telcos haven’t blocked. The company has “deliberately disabled” call forwarding, three-way calling and multi-phone ringing for ConsCallHome, it said. Those features have always been disabled, and more security features are coming soon, said Millicorp CEO Tim Meade in an interview. Millicorp “is willing to block calls to or from any telephone numbers” that’s prohibited by law if provided by a prison or prison telco, the company added. “Millicorp stands ready to implement any reasonable measures that the FCC deems necessary to enhance the security of its ConsCallHome service offering.”

Securus said Monday that Millicorp made “several misrepresentations of fact” in its filing. The prison authority statement cited by Millicorp says only the friends and families of prisoners are switching to VoIP to save money, Securus said. ConsCallHome is a security risk because it hides the phone number a prisoner is calling, it said. Securus doesn’t block calls to Vonage users “because, unlike calls rerouted by call diversion schemes, those calls do not pose security risks,” it said. Calls to Vonage users are traceable because records include an actual terminating number with a registered physical address, Securus said.

Also, Securus said there’s no way Millicorp could disable call-forwarding and other functions, because Millicorp “has no control over the [customer premises equipment] that these people use or the manner in which they use it.” Securus, and not Millicorp, has installed technology to prevent call forwarding and three-way calls, it added.