FCC Plans October Vote to Revisit Prison Phone Rate Caps

WASHINGTON, Sept. 17, 2025 – The Federal Communications Commission told a federal court it plans to vote Oct. 28 to pull back regulations it adopted last year to lower prices on prison phone calls.

That’s setting up a clash with nearly 100 advocacy groups, 23 House lawmakers, and more than 14,000 individuals who have pressed the FCC to restore the protections mandated by Congress in 2023 through the bipartisan Martha Wright-Reed Act.

On Sept. 7, the FCC said it expects to vote in October on an order that would “moot a substantial portion of litigation” over its 2024 prison phone order, in a filing to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.

The FCC wasn’t vague about its proposed new regulations – it told the court the Oct. 28 vote will likely include: 1) an order on reconsideration to directly change parts of the FCC’s 2024 order capping rates and fees, and 2) a further notice of proposed rulemaking to reopen broader issues around how rate caps are calculated.

The development comes as the FCC sought to dismiss oral arguments in Securus v. FCC – a challenge by one of the nation’s largest prison phone companies to the FCC's 2024 order. After filing a brief in April defending its rules, the FCC has since told the court the case was moot because it intends to issue new regulations.

“The question is what can we do,” said Bianca Tylek, executive director of Worth Rises, in an interview with Broadband Breakfast. Worth Rises was one of the public-interest groups petitioning the FCC to overturn its June 30 order delaying implementation of the rate caps, and also an active participant in the Securus case in the First Circuit.

“Our hope is that we can, between now and then, appeal to the commissioners,” Tylek detailed. “The new commissioner, Olivia Trusty, we are hoping to have a conversation with at some point ahead of October 28 to see what her positionality is.”

Tylek said the FCC was expected to circulate a draft order two weeks before the Oct. 28 vote. As of yet, it remains unclear how far the FCC will go in reversing the 2024 order. Some provisions have continued to be enforced, even as others were suspended.

“It’s not clear yet which pieces they’ll be reversing,” Tylek said. “From my understanding, it doesn't seem like they're going to reverse it 100 percent.”

Nearly 100 organizations sent a letter to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr and Commissioners Anna Gomez and Trusty this week, calling on the FCC to overturn the Wireline Competition Bureau’s suspension order delaying the rate caps. 

The letter was one of more than 1,000 reply comments filed Monday in support of the public-interest groups’ application for review. 

Attorneys general from Massachusetts, California, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island filed in support of the public-interest petition, noting that many of their states already provide low-cost or free prison communications. 

On the other side, filings from the National Sheriffs’ Association, prison telecom providers PayTel and Securus, and the states of Louisiana, Arkansas, Indiana urged the FCC on Aug. 29 to uphold the WCB’s suspension order.

“We hope this letter will be effective, but recent federal court filings by the FCC lead us to believe that it will go unheard,” said Cheryl Leanza, policy advisor of the United Church of Christ Media Justice Ministry, which has intervened in the First Circuit case.

The First Circuit has already rejected the FCC’s claim that the case was moot. The FCC then filed a renewed request to pause oral arguments, but the court has kept the October 7 hearing on the calendar. Advocates’ legal teams are preparing to defend the 2024 order in those arguments.