The Telecom Regulatory Authority (Trai) is reportedly working out a new access deficit regime for international long distance calls. If so, it is barking up the wrong tree. While a reduction in a questionable charge is welcome, sound policy calls for more than just tampering with the quantum. It is small comfort that Trai has officially acknowledged that the present access deficit charge (ADC) on all telephone calls are too high and will be reduced shortly. But it is not enough. As we have said in these columns earlier, the ADC regime in its present form must be given a speedy burial.
Trai had said as much in more than one of its earlier assessments, which favoured a change to a
revenue-share mechanism for implementing the ADC. It noted the current method „is complex, dependent on distance and whether the call is
inter-circle or
intra-circle…(and) creates an incentive to misreport the category of calls.“ More important, there is no clear categorisation of the loss to BSNL from rural telephony. Phone companies have no incentive to check the origin of any call terminating on their network, since regulations do not allow them to negotiate the rate they get for this.
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Advertising Competition between
call-service providers will intensify, after SaveCom International Inc (G„„du) joined the battle yesterday for
long-distance business.
SaveCom, an Internet network service provider, rolled out its «FreeCall» service, which can help cut phone bills through a session-initiation protocol (SIP), a device that can initiate interactive communication sessions between caller and recipient, to either fixed lines or broadband Internet.
«The service could cut into the fixed-line carrier’s long-distance revenue worth NT$15 billion every year,» Rock Hsu (Y), chairman of SaveCom, told a press conference yesterday.[ read more ]
HELENA
Long distance phone rates for men incarcerated at Montana State Prison in Deer Lodge are nearly 16 times higher than those charged outside the prison system, figures show.
Although rates vary depending on where in the state an inmate wishes to call, a typical 15-minute phone call from the prison to Billings costs $16.41, said Gary Willems, manager of the Department of Corrections contracts division. The fee consists of a $3.95 cent connection fee which includes the first minute of the call and 89 cents a minute after that.
A long distance call using Qwest long distance outside the prison system costs 7 cents a minute with a basic plan, according to company information. That means a 15-minute phone call from Deer Lodge to Billings costs $1.05.
Critics of the cost of phone calls for inmates call Montana’s rates and similar rates charged in many states a de facto tax on the poor. State and county officials, however, say the money goes back into services for inmates, such as cable television and gym equipment and to pay inmate medical bills at county jails.
All inmates at Montana State Prison must call collect, Willems said. Compared to other collect calls, prison rates are still high, more than twice as much, but more commensurate than non-collect calls made from outside the prison system. A typical 15-minute collect call from Deer Lodge to Billings using AT&T outside the prison walls would cost about $7.99, including a $2.39 connection fee which includes the first minute and 40 cents a minute after that.
The rates are high for a variety of reasons, Willems said, and the state doesn’t actually make any money off the inmates.
"Every call placed is recorded,’’ he said. "A computer clicks on and records it.’’
All that requires a special kind of phone system and the state, along with many Montana counties, sign contracts with companies specializing in prison phone systems to provide the service. Some of the increased in costs is to pay for the necessary recording equipment, Willems said.
’It’s a very technical system,’’ he said, adding that the cost of telephone calls is one of the most common complaints the department hears.
The department also gets half the money generated from inmate calls. Last year, that amounted to $302,655 for the men’s prison and $37,573 from the Montana Women’s Prison in Billings, department statistics show.
All the money goes to a special account managed by the inmates and used for goods and services designed to make life behind bars easier. That includes purchases such as microwave ovens for inmates or to refinish the floor of the gymnasium at the men’s prison, Willems said.
None of the money goes to the department’s own coffers or to offset expenses such as guards’ salaries or other necessary fees, he said.
Montana’s rates are more expensive than those charged in other states. The Idaho prison system, for example, charges a $2.25 connection fee for the first minute and 30 cents a minute after that, said Teresa Jones, spokeswoman for the Idaho Department of Correction. That’s about 61 percent cheaper than rates charged Montana inmates.
Idaho also mandates inmates must call collect and any money returned to the state from the calls also goes into an inmate welfare fund, Jones said.
California inmates pay a $2 connection fee and 28 cents a minute after the first minute, said Matt Grey, head of the Voters Corrections Reform Coalition, headquartered in that state. That’s about 64 percent cheaper than rates charged Montana inmates, although the state of California funnels all the money back into the state’s general fund, or checkbook, Grey said, meaning inmates don’t benefit from the high cost of phone calls.
Montana prisons aren’t the only lockdowns that rely on companies that charge higher rates for inmate phone calls all of which are recorded. Inmates at the Yellowstone County Detention Facility pay a flat $2.76 to make a local phone call no matter how long they talk, said Jim Kraft, director of Disaster and Emergency Services for Yellowstone County.
But if Yellowstone County inmates want to make a long distance call to Helena, for example, the call recipient will pay a $3.95 cent connection fee and 50 cents for every minute, including the first one, according to rate information from Correctional Billing Services, the company that holds the Yellowstone County contract. That makes a 15-minute phone call $11.45.
Rates at the Lewis and Clark County Detention Center in Helena are slightly higher, said Captain Dave Rau of the Lewis and Clark County Sheriff’s Department. They pay a $3 connection fee and 59 cents a minute. But there’s a caveat, Rau said. Inmates are not charged more than $11.85 no matter how long they talk on the phone.
All the money goes to pay for the medical bills of inmates, Rau said.
Inmates at the Butte Silver Bow Detention Facility pay the same fees as those in Billings: $2.76 for local calls and a $3.95 connection fee plus 50 cents a minute for long distance, said Capt. Jerome McCarthy of the Butte Silver Bow Law Enforcement Department.
But Butte inmates are not forced to make collect calls. The inmates can buy a phone card for $5, McCarthy said.
Rates of the Missoula County Detention Facility are the cheapest: a $2.76 connection fee and 50 cents a minute, according to information from Correctional Billing Services, which also handles the phone service at the Missoula lock-up.All
the money at every county jail contacted goes into services for inmates. All inmates, save for those at the Butte Silver Bow Detention Facility, must call collect.
Lewis and Clark County Sheriff Cheryl Liedle said her county relies on the fees from inmate phone calls to provide medical care for inmates.
’We use to offset and reduce the amount of bill taxpayers have to foot for inmate care and custody,’’ she said.
While those uses are laudable, California activist Grey said the idea of high fees charged to inmate families is generally a bad idea. Inmates with a strong family and support network fare better after they are released, he said. What’s more, he said, the families of inmates are often poor and it’s unfair to make them pay what amounts to a tax.
’The more ties you have to your community and the stronger your family relations are, the more likely you are to stay out of prison,’’ he said.
Some of the fees charged to those receiving calls from Montana prison inmates actually exceed a rate cap set by the Montana Public Service Commission, said PSC Chairman Bob Rowe.
The PSC set a cap of 83 cents a minute for inmate calls several years ago, he said. But inmates at the Montana State Prison are paying 89 cents a minute. Rowe said the PSC staff would follow up on the situation when staff members learn the name of the company charging the fees.
As for whether the fees are fair, Rowe said regulators must make tough choices. The money goes to reduce the overall tax burden on Montanans and provide valuable services for inmates, and all that is good.
’The balance is made even more complicated because, on the one hand, the individual customer may be low income, may be in a distressful situation,’’ Rowe wrote in a prepared statement, adding that some people in county jails haven’t been convicted of anything. ’It would make sense for the commission and the consumer counsel to examine other approaches.’’
Jennifer McKee
Lee State Bureau
NBC 6 Investigates
MIAMI -- Prison inmates are using your phone to make expensive long distance calls. You’re not only paying for them, you’re helping them do it.
Phone Recording: This call is from a correctional institution. You have a collect call from an inmate.
«It would say this call was coming from a prison,» Marilyn Garcia said. « It would disconnect and that would be it.»
«If they have taken advantage of me, they have taken advantage of a whole bunch of other people,» Sharon Glasgow said.
Glasgow and Garcia were both scammed by inmates in prison who used their home phones to make long distance calls billed to them -- and they had no idea.
«I forwarded these calls and didn’t know that I forwarded these calls,» Glasgow said.
It’s known as call forwarding fraud. It starts when inmates get you to accept a collect call, and then give you a sob story.
«He said he had been in an accident and the police had his children and could I please call his wife,» Glasgow said.
Glasgow lives in the Panhandle. She got a call an NBC 6 investigation found came from an inmate at Miami-Dade Correctional Facility. The inmate instructed Glasgow to hit *72, then another number.
What many people don’t realize is that *72 is the code that initiates call forwarding on your phone. It not only forwards the call you’re on at the time, but will continue to forward all calls that come to your home after that, even to long distance numbers.
«It’s pretty hard for me to explain the anger that is still in my mind because someone took advantage of my kindness,» Glasgow said.
Investigators say inmates use the jail’s payphones.
«Mike» is a long-time corrections investigator for Miami-Dade County’s correctional system.
«They can make any number of phone calls as long as that line is forwarded,» Mike said. «It occurs in all of our facilities.»
NBC 6 found victims across the state -- in Jacksonville, Osceola County, Lake County, the Panhandle and South Florida.
One scam bypassed collect calls all together by calling a dental office that had a toll-free number.
Marilyn Garcia was shocked when she found out that the family’s dental practice in west Miami-Dade County was a gold mine for inmates.
The office had a phone bill over $5,000 one month and $3,600 another.
By calling her office number, inmates were then able to use her phone to connect long distance. Some calls were placed to Cuba and Latin America.
«When I saw the bills I commented to the girls and they said, ’You know, we have been getting these strange phone calls,’» Garcia said.
It took months to clear the charges after filing a complaint with Florida’s Public Service Commission.
«We are trying to warn people not to participate in this and if they get a call like this, that they are going to get involved in something they didn’t intend to,» said Ruth Sasser, of the Bay County Sheriff’s Office. «They are going to get scammed.»
In Miami-Dade County, the 6,500 inmates can use almost 1,000 payphones. They make about 3 million calls a month and officials say it’s almost impossible to pinpoint a perpetrator.
In the past 12 months, Miami-Dade County Corrections has updated its mandatory phone recordings four times to warn the public.
«We altered the recording so that more information was provided to them before they accepted the charges for the call,» Frank Brophy said.
Still, victims are falling for it and are shocked when they finally discover what’s happened.
«It’s horrible,» Glasgow said. «I don’t like anyone to be taken advantage of.»
Some victims had to pay for the fraudulent calls while others got the charges removed.
BellSouth, AT&T and the corrections system say they are working to stop the problem. They say if something doesn’t sound right, hang up the phone.
To report any problems, call AT&T at (888) 241–1290. If you think you are a victim of this type of scam, call the Public Service Commission at (800) 342–3552.
By Ottawa Business Journal Staff
The annual report from the federal broadcast regulator Thursday reaffirmed what has already become apparent from phone companies’ fiscal reports traditional phone service is a cash cow on its last hoof.
In its report for 2003, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission reported that Canada’s telecom market grew by a modest 1.1 per cent last year, to $31.8 billion in annual revenues.
All of that gain came from greater demand for Internet and wireless services, the report found.
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