New America's Open Technology Institute wrote and submitted comments with United Church of Christ, OC Inc., Free Press, Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, the National Consumer Law Center (on behalf of its low-income clients), and Public Knowledge in response to proposed reforms by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for rates, services, and practices surrounding calling services for incarcerated people. To improve the ability of those incarcerated to communicate with their families, advocates, and others, we recommend in our comments that the FCC 1) ensure equivalent access to telecommunications services for incarcerated people with disabilities, 2) adopt lower rates across all categories of services, for all sizes of carceral facilities, 3) exclude from costs site commissions, fees, and services irrelevant to the provision of communications services, and 4) collect accurate data periodically on ICS costs and the ICS marketplace.
