Sheriff's offices need to be able to recover their costs if inmate calling services (ICS) are going to continue to be widely available in jails, said multiple ex parte filings in FCC docket 12-375 by sheriff's offices in Arizona and Wyoming. The Coconino County Sheriff's Office in Arizona said it uses ICS cost recovery fees for more than just communication -- the money is also used to fund drug and rehabilitation services and life skills classes for inmates. Both the Navajo County Sheriff's Office in Arizona and the Laramie County Sheriff's Department in Wyoming filed nearly identical ex parte notices, echoing the Coconino County Sheriff's Office's concerns. The filings said that if ICS competes with all of the other budget needs, it may not be funded. Thursday, the FCC is to vote on an ICS order (see 1510160053).

Global Tel*Link filed a prohibited ex parte presentation two days after the FCC released its sunshine notice on the inmate calling service (ICS) item set for a vote at Thursday’s meeting, the Wireline Bureau said Wednesday. The FCC plans a vote on a draft item to limit ICS user rates and charges (see 1509300067). The bureau nonetheless will make the filing part of the official record in docket 12-375, the public notice said. Proposed rates, as projected in an FCC fact sheet, “would reduce all ICS rates to levels that are not supported by the record cost data and would not ensure fair compensation for ICS providers as required by law,” GTL told the agency. “It is not enough for a rate cap to be placed squarely at cost. This means that a significant portion of the ICS industry would face costs in excess of the proposed caps.” The bureau said it's referring the filing to the Office of General Counsel (OGC). GTL didn't comment. An industry official said the filing of a notice with OGC is simply a procedural requirement under the FCC's rules.

Communications Workers of America bargaining teams reached tentative agreements with AT&T Southeast, AT&T Utility Operations and BellSouth Billing on contracts for a total of 28,000 workers, said a CWA announcement Tuesday. At our deadline Tuesday, details were being given to CWA members for ratification votes, it said. The new contracts will "provide an improvement in wages, pension safeguards, improvements in job security, a better work/home life balance, and many other gains resulting in real economic improvement for workers," the union said. Negotiations with AT&T Southeast have been ongoing since before the contracts expired Aug. 8, CWA said. Mark Royse, executive vice president-labor relations for AT&T, said its goal during the negotiations was to work with the union to bargain a "fair and balanced" contract that allows the company to continue to provide "excellent union-represented careers with wages and benefits that are among the best in the country, while controlling costs and maintaining the flexibility the company needs to operate in an extremely competitive industry." He said the agreement achieves that goal.

The FCC should streamline the Lifeline program regulations, not add new ones, said an ex parte filing by the Lifeline Connects Coalition posted Monday in docket 11-42. The commission should also adopt a national third-party eligibility verification framework that builds on current state eligibility databases, it said. The agency should reject TracFone's proposal to ban in-person handset distribution and commission payments to agents, the group said. "Those proposals are purely designed to remove TracFone’s competition from the market to the detriment of consumers who benefit from the outreach efforts commissions enable and who should be treated just like non-Lifeline customers who expect to receive a handset when they sign up for service," the group said.

AT&T representatives discussed its wire center trial in Carbon Hill, Alabama, with FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai, said a filing Monday in docket 13-5. “AT&T discussed its on-going community outreach efforts and the general customer feedback received to date,” the carrier said. “We also provided as background an overview of the demographic and topographic characteristics of the wire center and the various TDM-based and IP-based wired and wireless technologies that today are deployed in the wire center.”

Parts of an FCC IP transition order take effect Nov. 18, while others must be OK'd by the Office of Management and Budget, the commission said in a notice in Monday's Federal Register. It said the order again said telcos don't need approval to retire legacy facilities as long as the changes don't hurt the services provided, as ILECs transition to all fiber. Commissioners approved, 3-2, an IP transition order in August.

Civil rights groups worry that an FCC plan to cap rates for inmate calling service calls and to limit excessive fees on such ICS calls may allow for other high fees, they told Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, an aide to Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, aides to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, and others in meetings last week, reported a filing posted Monday in docket 12-375. ICS site commission fees and new ancillary fees could possibly be used "to circumvent the rate cap," the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council said on the meetings with representatives from MMTC, Silent Sentence Coalition and other groups. They asked the FCC to put safeguards in the order against such "predatory fees," based on commission authority to make telecom services be just and reasonable. The ICS order is set for a commissioner vote Thursday and is backed by civil rights groups (see 1510160053).

The FCC barred Icon Telecom from participating in the Lifeline program for three years, said a notice dated Tuesday and included in Wednesday's Daily Digest. The commission suspended Icon from the program in May (see 1506080067). Icon participated in the program from 2011 to 2013 and pleaded guilty to making a false statement to the Universal Service Administrative Co. when it submitted 58 fabricated customer recertification forms, the notice said.

It's impossible for companies to offer both broadband and voice/text services as a part of the Lifeline program for $9.25/month, said TruConnect in an ex parte letter filed with the FCC Tuesday in docket 11-42. To fix this problem, TruConnect said that the FCC should give customers more subsidies in their initial term of service. The company also asked the FCC to consider its petition to be designated as an eligible telecom carrier.

AT&T opposed calls by rivals for immediate FCC regulation of special-access terms and conditions in contracts, particularly given that industry representatives are just gaining access to confidential market data collected by the agency as part of a broad review. AT&T said arguments made by Sprint and CLECs in filings were "nothing new" and "mischaracterized" the terms and conditions and their impact on competition in the business market. "It is not surprising that some carriers would like the Commission to increase their profit margins by rewriting their special access contracts; it’s a nice benefit if you can get it. But there are substantive and procedural requirements that must be met before any such action could lawfully be taken, and those requirements have not been met," said an AT&T filing posted Wednesday in docket 05-25. "The complaining carriers have a good reason for trying to jump the gun on the Commission’s review of the special access data: the real-world data will show that they have many alternatives to price cap LEC offerings. The shift from legacy TDM services to Ethernet continues to accelerate. Indeed, evidence abounds that special access competition has become even more intense since the carriers last raised these arguments." Competitors say the Bells use their special-access dominance to extract volume and term agreements that "lock up" rival carriers in wholesale contracts and business customers in retail contracts in order to receive discounts, thwarting competitive responses that do emerge (see 1510080051).