The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has waived deadlines that would have drastically reduced the rates incarcerated people and their families pay for audio and video calls.
Rates will now remain as high as $11.35 for a 15-minute call from a large jail or up to $12.10 for the same call from a small jail. If allowed to take effect, the deadlines would have established rate caps of $0.90–$1.35 for the same 15-minute call.
The rules about per-minute rates are on hold, but the FCC let stand the portion of the 2024 ruling that eliminated the ability for phone and video call providers to impose separate ancillary service charges on those calls.
The waiver was necessary due to unintended consequences of the original decision, according to a news release from the FCC Office of Media Relations. But Commissioner Anna M. Gomez, the only Democrat on the commission, issued a separate statement asserting the waiver ignores both the law and the will of Congress.
“It’s time for the FCC to do its job,” Gomez wrote. “Its responsibility is not to protect profit-driven contracts — it is to uphold the law and serve the public. That means enforcing just and reasonable rates, not delaying justice.”
The official FCC statement about the rates, meanwhile, said the waiver would allow the commission time to gather more information about the issue and would give service providers, correctional facilities, and local governments more time to comply.
The 2024 order was causing institutions to limit (or plan to limit) inmate communications due to concerns with the 2024 decision, according to the statement. Furthermore, the rate caps set in 2024 were too low to cover required safety measures, and the rules were being implemented before state and local governments could secure alternative funding.
A 12-page order extending the release cited reports from telecom providers and law enforcement agencies that backed these claims. It relied heavily on statements from TKC Telecom (Turnkey Corrections) and Securus Technologies, two of the nation’s biggest providers of communications services for jails and prisons. These companies are struggling with implementation and billing challenges, the order says, and smaller providers are likely facing the same challenges.
Some jails had already reverted to traditional collect calls, and that meant having a correctional officer stand by during each call, the order read.
In addition to extending the deadlines, the FCC hopes to “find ways to ensure that communications are more readily available and that important safety and security protocols are maintained.” To do so, it hopes to encourage the adoption of artificial intelligence and machine learning tools to help monitor inmate communications.
The FCC’s June 30, 2025, decision overturns a 2024 vote taken in response to Martha Wright-Reed Just and Reasonable Communications Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in 2022.
If allowed to stand, the rates decided by the FCC in 2024 would have taken effect by no later than April 1, 2026. Those deadlines have now been moved back to April 1, 2027, “unless the Commission sets an alternative date.”
