Court Grants Partial Stay of FCC Order, Hard Caps Go Into Effect Feb. 11

Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit granted a partial stay of the Federal Communications Commisson (FCC)’s Order regulating interstate prison and jail phone rates. That means that sections of the Order requiring that rates be cost-based, setting presumptively fair “safe harbor rates,” and imposing reporting requirements on companies will not go into effect until the Court rules on them. However, the part of the Order that caps interstate rates at 21 cents per minute for debit calls and 25 cents per minute for collect calls remains intact. All New Jersey prisons and jails will have to lower their rates to comply with those caps by February 11, 2014.

Read the partial stay here.