What happened?
During the Federal Communication Commission’s Open Commission Meeting on October 28, 2025, the FCC approved an order to amend the reduced rates of communication services for incarcerated people proposed by the Martha Wright-Reed Act. Among other changes, the 2024 proposal would have implemented significantly lower rates for voice calls and newly implemented rates on video calls for incarcerated people. Shortly after taking effect, several IPCS providers (Incarcerated People’s Communications Services) claimed they were unable to implement the changes by the given compliance date due to financial, technical, and security challenges. In light of these challenges, a waiver order issued in June 2025 extended the compliance deadline to 2027 or until the FCC took further action. Further action came in a 2-1 vote by the FCC to minimally allow an additional, interim 2 cent per minute increase to all rate tiers “to account for correctional facilities’ expenses.” You can read the order here.
Effective Rate Caps for Voice and Video Calls
* Effective Rate Caps include the 2 cent additive.
** Extremely small jails were not a tier in the 2024 order, so they share the same rate cap as the 2024 very small jail tier.
How does this change affect you?
The new order should take effect within 120 days, at which point the pricing tiers shown above will become the new effective rate caps for incarcerated peoples’ communication services going forward. The 2 cent additive is only an interim increase in the rate to allow correctional facilities time to reallocate funds to account for the decrease in commissions. The 2024 order prohibited IPCS providers from offering site commissions and limited the per minute commission correctional facilities could receive to 2 cents per minute. The 2 cent commission would have come out of the per minute rate, but it will now be added on top of the per minute rate caps.
Any jails with 0-49 ADP (average daily population) will also see higher communication rates compared to the original rates passed in the 2024 order to account for IPCS operating costs.
At JointAccounts, we are determined to provide the same excellent communication services our customers have come to know while adjusting to any new regulations. We will continue to monitor any developments to keep you informed. Contact us if you have questions about how this will affect your family or facility.