Wireline Competition Bureau and Office of Economics and Analytics Adopt 2026 Mandatory Data Collection for Incarcerated People's Communications Services

Issuing agencies

Abstract

In this Order, the Wireline Competition Bureau (WCB) and the Office of Economics and Analytics (OEA) (collectively, WCB/OEA) adopt instructions, Word and Excel templates, and a certification form to implement the 2026 incarcerated people's communications services (IPCS) Mandatory Data Collection.

Full Text

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<title>Federal Register, Volume 91 Issue 191 (Monday, October 5, 2026)</title>
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[Federal Register Volume 91, Number 191 (Monday, October 5, 2026)]
[Rules and Regulations]
[Pages 63149-63156]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[FR Doc No: 2026-20362]


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FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION

47 CFR Part 64

[WC Docket Nos. 23-62; 12-375; DA 26-1008; FR ID 369648]


Wireline Competition Bureau and Office of Economics and Analytics 
Adopt 2026 Mandatory Data Collection for Incarcerated People's 
Communications Services

AGENCY: Federal Communications Commission.

ACTION: Final action.

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SUMMARY: In this Order, the Wireline Competition Bureau (WCB) and the 
Office of Economics and Analytics (OEA) (collectively, WCB/OEA) adopt 
instructions, Word and Excel templates, and a certification form to 
implement the 2026 incarcerated people's communications services (IPCS) 
Mandatory Data Collection.

DATES: Compliance date: Providers must file their submissions by 
December 21, 2026.

ADDRESSES: Federal Communications Commission, 45 L Street NE, 
Washington, DC 20554.
    People with Disabilities: To request materials in accessible 
formats for people with disabilities (Braille, large print, electronic 
files, audio format), send an email to <a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#ef898c8cdadfdbaf898c8cc1888099"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="93f5f0f0a6a3a7d3f5f0f0bdf4fce5">[email&#160;protected]</span></a>, or call the 
Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau at (202) 418-0530 (voice) or 
(202) 418-0432 (TTY).

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Wireline Competition Bureau, Pricing 
Policy Division, at <a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#4a031a09190a2c2929642d253c"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="da938a99899abcb9b9f4bdb5ac">[email&#160;protected]</span></a>.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: This is a summary of WCB and OEA's Order, DA 
26-1008, adopted September 21, 2026 and released September 21, 2026, in 
WC Docket Nos. 23-62 and 12-375. The full text of this document is 
available online at <a href="https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-26-1008A1.pdf">https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-26-1008A1.pdf</a> or accessing the Commission's Electronic Comment Filing 
System (ECFS) website at <a href="http://www.fcc.gov/ecfs">www.fcc.gov/ecfs</a>.

Synopsis

I. Introduction

    1. By this Order, the Wireline Competition Bureau (WCB) and the 
Office of Economics and Analytics (OEA) (collectively, WCB/OEA) adopt 
instructions, Word and Excel templates, and a certification form to 
implement the 2026 Mandatory Data Collection (2026 MDC) relating to 
incarcerated people's communications services (IPCS). Our actions are 
taken pursuant to the authority delegated to WCB and OEA by the 
Commission in the 2025 IPCS Order, 90 FR 56013, December 5, 2025, and 
implement proposals set forth in the 2026 Mandatory Data Collection 
Public Notice (2026 MDC PN), 91 FR 36552, June 17, 2026, with 
refinements and clarifications responsive to the record.

II. Background

    2. Pursuant to this delegation, WCB and OEA released the 2026 MDC 
PN on June 8, 2026, 91 FR 36552, June 17, 2026, which sought comment on 
the contours and specific requirements of the proposed 2026 MDC. 
Specifically, in the 2026 MDC PN, WCB and OEA sought comment on 
streamlining the 2023 Mandatory Data Collection, while continuing to 
collect the information necessary to support the Commission's 
ratemaking efforts. WCB and OEA also sought comment on the proposed 
instructions, Word and Excel templates, and certification form. 
Concurrently, in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 
(PRA), the Commission published a notice in the Federal Register 
seeking initial comment on the proposed reporting requirements, 91 FR 
38435, June 25, 2026.

III. Discussion

    3. Pursuant to our delegated authority, we adopt the 2026 IPCS 
Mandatory Data Collection instructions, Word and Excel templates, and 
certification form as proposed in the 2026 MDC PN, with limited 
exceptions as discussed below. We revise the previous 2023 Mandatory 
Data Collection (2023 MDC), 88 FR 51240, August 3, 2023 to more 
narrowly tailor the scope of this collection to appropriately reduce 
reporting burdens without compromising the Commission's ratemaking 
efforts. Commenters broadly support the proposal to streamline the data 
collection and generally support the overall reporting structure and 
organization, which remains largely consistent with prior iterations. 
We decline to adopt various suggestions to further streamline the data 
collection as discussed herein, and find that the collection we adopt 
will enable the Commission to assess the status of the industry, 
including the development and deployment of video IPCS.

A. Reporting Period

    4. We adopt the proposal to limit the mandatory data collection 
reporting period to the calendar year 2025. We find that collecting 
calendar year 2025 data will ``provide the most pertinent and best 
indicator of relevant costs,'' as it represents the most recent full 
year of reporting data available. ViaPath recommends the data 
collection ``should be focused on calendar year 2025 data only'' as 
those data ``represent the most recent data available, and are 
therefore likely to be more representative of future operations by IPCS 
providers than data from prior years.'' It also notes that ``[u]sing 
one year of data is consistent with the approach in the 2023 MDC.'' And 
as we have catalogued elsewhere, various parties applaud our efforts to 
streamline the collection and reduce reporting burdens generally. As we 
discuss in greater detail below, we decline suggestions to expand the 
scope of the collection, and instead ``rely on the best data 
available,'' which we believe strikes the right balance between the 
benefit of the information collected and the proportionate burden 
involved in the collection.
    5. Securus and the Wright Petitioners advocate for a three-year 
reporting period to capture industry data from 2023, 2024, and 2025, 
which they argue would provide the Commission with ``a more nuanced 
picture of costs and cost trends.'' These commenters also argue that 
collecting multiple years of reporting data would materially help the 
Commission identify longer term cost structures, particularly ``for new 
services such as video calling.'' Similarly, the Brattle Group argues 
that a single-year collection would leave the Commission ``without the 
time-series information needed for future rate-setting.''
    6. We decline to adopt proposals to expand the reporting period 
beyond calendar year 2025. We are sensitive to the burdens involved in 
responding to the collection, and are unpersuaded that the benefits of 
requiring providers to submit multiple years of data outweigh

[[Page 63150]]

the additional burden involved. Our approach is not dissimilar to that 
suggested by the Wright Petitioners in the context of the previous data 
collection, where they acknowledged the importance of balancing the 
value of gathering additional data against the burden of doing so. The 
Commission previously collected industry cost data for calendar year 
2022, which in conjunction with 2025 data will enable the Commission to 
estimate industry trends and largely moot such concerns. Additionally, 
our data collection instructions require disaggregated reporting of 
capital assets, capital expenses and operating expenses, and require 
providers to fully document and explain their cost allocations. In that 
way, we capture providers' investment in long-term assets and the 
recurring expenses they incur to supply IPCS on a continuous basis. In 
sum, we find that the burdens of expanding the data collection to 
include multiple years of data outweigh the benefits.
    7. For these reasons, we also decline to adopt expanded reporting 
of specific metrics in other years as suggested by the Brattle Group in 
lieu of expanding the reporting period. It proposes that if the 
reporting period is limited to the collection of calendar year 2025 
data, providers should additionally be required to submit calendar year 
2024 data for ``a limited set of high value metrics,'' and also 
suggests requiring providers to report data on site commissions and 
payments to facilities after April 2026, or after the Commission's 
prohibition of site commissions became effective. We do not agree that 
these targeted collections are required to supplement calendar year 
2025 data, nor do we agree that they would yield benefits commensurate 
with their burdens. To the contrary, we find that collecting only a 
select subset of data for certain years would risk a potentially 
misleading partial view of the industry in that timeframe, which could 
leave the Commission without a consistent dataset on which to base 
permanent IPCS rate caps. The Wright Petitioners have previously 
recognized the value of ``collect[ing sufficient] data to ensure a 
holistic view of the IPCS industry.'' Additionally, the heightened 
burden of even a ``targeted'' expansion of the collection may prove 
substantial--expanding the collection both before and after 2025 could 
double or triple the records required to inform a provider's response--
regardless whether the data sought is narrowly targeted.
    8. We likewise decline to delay the data collection as Pay Tel 
proposes. The Commission has noted ``the importance of conducting a 
data collection without further delay'' and has clearly stated its 
intent to establish permanent rates for IPCS in 2027. Pay Tel argues 
that collecting data for calendar year 2025 would prove inadequate for 
setting permanent rates because the regulatory environment did not 
reflect the reforms the Commission adopted in the 2025 IPCS Order. 
Instead, Pay Tel argues that the Commission should collect data for a 
reporting period which begins ``April 6, 2026 at the earliest, and 
ideally not until . . . several months of operations under the 2025 
IPCS Order's reforms.'' We disagree. As Pay Tel itself identifies, 
``[r]egulatory changes in the IPCS industry do not result in 
instantaneous cost changes.'' Nor do we agree that 2025 data offers 
``no practical benefit,'' because that data will enable the 
Commission's ratemaking efforts, which carry benefits to the public 
that would otherwise become attenuated with further delay. Pay Tel 
further argues that at best calendar year 2025 data would ``only burden 
providers and raise compliance costs for no practical benefit.'' Pay 
Tel fails to convince us that cost data for the period before the 
effective date of the 2025 IPCS Order, are not pertinent or relevant to 
setting permanent, cost-based IPCS rate caps. Despite Pay Tel's 
suggestion that any collection be delayed until the industry reaches an 
``equilibrium,'' Pay Tel provides no objective or observable basis for 
the Commission to determine when such an ``equilibrium'' might occur. 
Consistent with the Commission's determination that ``there is still a 
reason for urgency,'' we are unwilling to delay action until some 
speculative future date, nor are we required to do so. The Commission 
has the regulatory expertise and authority to make necessary 
adjustments to the data it collects and to its ratemaking approach to 
ensure that permanent rates are set at levels that are just, 
reasonable, and fairly compensatory.

B. Definitions

    9. Commenters generally support the proposed changes to streamline 
the data collection, which include proposed changes to the definitions, 
or do not comment on the proposed definitions. We therefore adopt the 
definitions as proposed. We have also proposed various administrative 
revisions to the definitions, including grammatical corrections, edits 
to ensure consistent use of terms, and other non-substantive edits.
    10. Audio IPCS and Video IPCS. We adopt the definitions of Audio 
IPCS and Video IPCS as proposed in the 2026 MDC PN, and decline to 
revise these definitions as suggested by Securus. Securus observes that 
the definition of Audio IPCS includes ``all point-to-point video 
services made available to incarcerated people for communication in 
American Sign Language (ASL) with other ASL users'' and raises concerns 
with ``[i]ncluding a video service within the Audio definition.'' 
Securus recommends removing this service from the Audio IPCS definition 
and including it instead in the definition of Video IPCS. We 
acknowledge the facial logic of Securus' observation but nonetheless 
decline to adopt its recommended change to avoid creating any potential 
confusion over the applicable rate caps for ASL services, the rates for 
which are capped under our rules at the charge for ``a voice telephone 
call of the same duration, distance, Jurisdiction, and time-of-day 
placed to or from an individual incarcerated at the same Correctional 
Facility.'' Because our rules cap the price of point-to-point video 
service for ``incarcerated individuals with communication disabilities 
who can use ASL'' at a voice telephone charge, we find that Securus' 
proposed change might engender more confusion than it resolves.
    11. Consumer and Customer. We adopt the definitions of Consumer and 
Customer as proposed in the data collection instructions, but combine 
them into a single definition for ease of reference. Securus notes that 
the proposed instructions contain identical definitions for the two 
terms and suggests we redefine Customer to mean ``the correctional 
authority with which the IPCS provider has contracted to provide 
services,'' instead of ``the party paying a Provider of IPCS,'' as we 
have proposed to define Customer and Consumer. We have used nearly 
identical versions of both terms in previous data collections, which 
proved effective, and find that both terms retain useful clarity as 
implemented throughout the instructions. To simplify our definitional 
section, however, we combine them into a single definition, which 
requires no additional conforming modifications of the instructions nor 
of the templates. Further, we also find that Securus' proposed 
redefinition of Customer would not increase the clarity of the 
instructions. The use of the defined terms Contracting Authority and 
Facility (and synonymous terms) serve the same purpose and cover the 
same entities as the new definition Securus proposes for the term 
Customer, and therefore, to make the change which Securus suggests 
would risk newfound confusion between those terms. Besides

[[Page 63151]]

Securus, no provider nor other party has noted any confusion over the 
meaning of Consumer, Customer, Contracting Authority, or Facility in 
the context of prior data collections. We find that making the narrow 
change, to define both terms synonymously in a single definition, will 
reduce confusion by eliminating two parallel definitions, without 
risking further confusion by tying either definition to already 
established terms.

C. Cost Categories and Allocation

1. Cost Categories and Sub-Categories
    12. We sought comment on the cost categories and subcategories that 
we proposed to use to collect investment in capital assets, capital 
expenses and operating expenses and now adopt those aspects of the data 
collection as proposed. As noted in the 2026 MDC PN, those categories 
and subcategories are consistent with those used in the 2023 MDC, and 
adopting them will provide the Commission with comparable datasets on 
which to base its rate setting analysis. In the 2026 MDC PN, we also 
sought comment on Securus' suggestion that we eliminate the collection 
of subcategory data, including seven subcategories each for the capital 
assets and capital expenses, and fifteen subcategories for operating 
expenses, and retain only totals for the major categories. Securus 
contends that ``[t]he Commission . . . only uses bottom line totals for 
capital assets and expenditures and for operating expenses.'' Securus' 
consultant, FTI Consulting, argues that ``[t]his subcategorization 
bears little to no resemblance to how providers account for and track 
costs in the real world. . . . [T]he Commission does not use these 
subcategories in deriving recoverable costs.'' The Wright Petitioners 
recommend rejection of Securus' ``sweeping proposal to collapse all 
capital assets, capital expenses, and operating expenses into single 
totals.'' The Wright Petitioners note that ``subcategory granularity--
in both capital and operating cost reporting--is essential in detecting 
cost inflation, misallocation between IPCS and non-IPCS services, and 
anomalous shifts in how providers book common costs over time.'' The 
Wright Petitioners' consultant, the Brattle Group, further notes that 
consolidating reporting as Securus proposes ``would undermine the 
Commission's ability to estimate IPCS-related costs.''
    13. We find that the reporting structure we adopt provides a 
necessary level of detail that enables the Commission to understand how 
IPCS providers incur and attribute costs, the impact of those costs on 
operations and on the overall health of the company, and the 
contribution of those costs to the rate-base. The use of categories and 
subcategories encourages providers to attribute the investments and 
expenses among services using causality-based allocators that link the 
various investments and expenses specifically to the activities that 
drive them (where direct assignment is not possible). We therefore 
reject Securus' proposals to reduce the required reporting of capital 
assets and expenses by requiring a single total for gross investment, a 
single total for accumulated depreciation or amortization for capital 
assets, and a single annual depreciation/amortization expense total. 
Likewise, we reject Securus' proposal to reduce operating expenses 
reporting to a single operating expense total. We decline to adopt 
Securus' submitted Excel template proposal for the same reasons.
    14. The Commission relies on these data subcategories in its IPCS 
rate-setting calculations. Securus acknowledges that the Commission 
utilized subcategory data in analyzing IPCS providers' goodwill 
expenses in the 2024 IPCS Order, 89 FR 77244, September 20, 2024. The 
Commission calculated that IPCS providers reported $141 million in 
goodwill expenses, which represented approximately 15 percent of the 
relevant providers' total IPCS costs. While the Commission ultimately 
did not adjust providers' goodwill totals in setting rate caps, it 
nonetheless incorporated analysis of providers' goodwill data when 
selecting rate caps within the zones of reasonableness as part of its 
ratemaking process. The Commission is also likely to utilize providers' 
reporting of two subcategories of operating expenses (i.e., Billing, 
Collection, Client Management, and Customer Care expenses and Bad Debt 
expenses) in determining providers' payment processing services costs, 
discussed below, when setting permanent IPCS rate caps, because 
providers argue they will incur increased cost in providing payment 
processing services to IPCS consumers following the implementation of 
the Commission's prohibition on ancillary service charges.
    15. We decline to adopt recommendations by the Brattle Group to 
require continued reporting of site commissions, legacy ancillary 
services, and component-based reporting of other, non-IPCS products and 
services. The Brattle Group fails to adequately support these proposals 
in a manner that overcomes the limited utility of such cost data for 
rate-setting purposes. The Brattle Group's reasons for recommending 
continued, detailed reporting of these cost categories do not directly 
support the ultimate purpose of the data collection, and we find that 
the narrowly-tailored approach to the collection we adopt will gather 
sufficient cost data to account for these now-prohibited practices. 
Accordingly, we find the burden of continuing to require the reporting 
of these cost data outweighs any potential benefit to the Commission's 
rate setting for audio IPCS or video IPCS. Separately, for similar 
reasons we also decline to adopt the Brattle Group's recommendation to 
require additional component-based reporting of other products and 
services-related cost categories when those costs exceed a percentage 
of total costs or revenues. We are unpersuaded that requiring that 
additional detail on IPCS providers' non-regulated offerings would 
result in information that would be useful to the Commission's IPCS 
ratemaking efforts. The Brattle Group offers no additional 
justification or support for this proposal other than transparency, and 
we are not inclined to develop new reporting requirements on that 
limited basis.
2. Cost Allocation Instructions
    16. We adopt the cost allocation instructions for this data 
collection as proposed, which as noted in the 2026 MDC PN, largely 
mirror those from the 2023 MDC. ViaPath again proposes the Commission 
require allocation on a contract basis rather than on a facility basis. 
The Commission previously found contract-level reporting to be a poor 
fit for its IPCS ratemaking efforts due to resulting limitations with 
the dataset. Further, we find that ViaPath has not established how 
contract-level reporting could satisfy the Martha Wright-Reed Act's 
direction to consider costs for ``small, medium, or large facilities.'' 
Securus suggests that we ``adopt more prescriptive and detailed 
allocation methodologies,'' further suggesting that a consensus 
methodology or bifurcated methodologies, based on provider size, be 
developed to direct cost allocations. We disagree. While the aim ``to 
reduce divergence'' in allocation results across providers may be a 
laudable goal, developing ``a consensus methodology'' would likely be 
unnecessarily burdensome and prescriptive. We rely instead upon the 
current cost allocation approach because it ``provides a necessary and 
workable framework within which to standardize and compare the data 
submitted, while . . . affording providers the flexibility to implement 
the cost allocation

[[Page 63152]]

instructions in a manner that reflects their accounting and 
recordkeeping systems.'' In doing so, we acknowledge that providers 
differ in their approach to accounting and recordkeeping, and we find 
that ``more prescriptive and detailed allocation methodologies'' may 
result in sacrificing accuracy in favor of uniformity without 
materially improving the results of the data collection. Further, 
Securus has not proposed a more prescriptive cost allocation 
methodology to reduce divergence in reported cost data that would also 
preserve the flexibility offered by the current cost allocation 
instructions, and we cannot adopt theory. We address other, more 
specific allocation issues below.
3. Company-Specific WACC
    17. In light of the adoption of the instructions as proposed, we 
decline to revisit the proposed elimination of optional reporting of an 
alternative weighted average cost of capital (WACC). We find 
unpersuasive commenters' arguments that we should allow this optional, 
additional reporting. The Commission's default WACC was the result of a 
notice and comment rate represcription proceeding which resulted in the 
adoption of a conservative rate of return for local exchange carrier 
services subject to rate of return on rate base regulation. Providers' 
arguments in support of optional reporting for an alternative WACC are 
based on alleged differences between IPCS and local exchange service, 
which fail to address the Commission's rejection of the argument that 
IPCS providers are ``primarily technology and IT service providers,'' 
or acknowledgement that ``IPCS is a communications service, yet not 
necessarily the same as local exchange carrier service,'' when applying 
the default WACC in the 2024 IPCS Order. Commenters also assail this 
figure as based on dated information and dependent on ``data from 2012 
and 2013.'' This criticism fails, because as we discuss herein, the 
Commission applied the default WACC in the IPCS context in both the 
2024 IPCS Order, and in the 2025 IPCS Order. Despite subsequent 
litigation, that aspect of these decisions has not been appealed. 
Relatedly, the default figure still used in rate-of return ratemaking 
is appropriate because when setting the default WACC, the Commission 
``added a cushion to account for regulatory lag between recognition of 
the need to prescribe a different rate of return, as capital markets 
change significantly over time, and actually prescribing a new rate of 
return.'' Importantly, out of the entire industry, only two providers 
elected to report an alternative WACC in their 2023 MDC submissions, 
despite having the ability to do so in both of the prior two data 
collections. In turn, the Commission found that both failed to 
sufficiently justify their reported estimates, as discussed in the 2024 
IPCS Order. Given the inherent imprecision and difficulty of estimating 
the cost of equity, the Commission found if it were to estimate the 
WACC for those two providers, the margin of error would produce ranges 
that would encompass the 9.75% default WACC. Taking these points 
together, we are unconvinced that preserving this option would produce 
more reliable results. Commission staff have substantial experience 
with analyzing provider-submitted alternative WACCs and supporting 
justifications, and we find no benefit to the Commission's rate-setting 
efforts of entertaining optional reporting of this figure, particularly 
on a provider-by-provider basis. Should an IPCS provider choose to 
attempt to demonstrate that the Commission's permanent IPCS rate caps 
do not ensure fair compensation, it has recourse through the IPCS-
specific waiver process provided for in the Commission's rules.
4. Tablet Usage
    18. We adopt our proposal to require providers to report minutes of 
use for tablets, divided between regulated and non-regulated services. 
We find that collecting usage data for tablets and the reporting of 
those minutes of use between IPCS and non-IPCS uses will enable the 
Commission to analyze IPCS cost allocations and aid the Commission in 
setting permanent rates. Various commenters urge the Commission to 
adopt rules to allocate tablet costs between IPCS and other products 
and services based on reported minutes of use. How tablet usage data is 
utilized is a matter for the Commission to determine as it analyzes 
providers' data, and is beyond the scope of the Commission's delegation 
to WCB and OEA. Additionally, given the broad support in the record for 
collecting data on tablet usage as proposed, we find the Brattle 
Group's suggestion to require reporting on more granular cost drivers 
for tablets to be both unnecessary and overly burdensome. Similarly, we 
find that our proposed cost allocation instructions provide the 
necessary flexibility to allow providers to report their tablet costs 
in a manner that best reflects their operations, whereas a more 
prescriptive approach might render reported costs inaccurate or 
unrepresentative.

D. Ancillary Service Charge Cost Reporting and Payment Processing 
Services Reporting

    19. Following the prohibition of ancillary service charges in the 
2024 IPCS Order, and in light of the record, we adopt our proposal to 
eliminate separate reporting for the categories of ancillary services 
previously included in the 2023 MDC. As a general matter, the majority 
of commenters support this revision to further streamline reporting. 
Eliminating separate reporting of former ancillary service costs will 
reduce reporting burdens by allowing providers to include those costs 
in their general, company-wide cost reporting. We agree that, given 
this prohibition, ``there is no need to report costs for each of the 
previously allowed, separately charged ancillary services.'' The Wright 
Petitioners concede that retaining these reporting requirements would 
add to the reporting burden for providers, but allege that any 
additional burden will not be significant, particularly because they 
claim that providers ``already track ancillary services costs.'' 
However, the record is unclear about the difficulty of continuing to 
require the reporting of ancillary service costs, particularly after 
the Commission prohibited the ability to charge for such legacy 
services. We further find that the burden of requiring separate 
reporting of ancillary service charge cost data is not offset by any 
benefit since doing so would not produce information of ``material 
value'' for rate-setting purposes.
    20. The Wright Petitioners caution that providers may ``indirectly 
recreat[e] prohibited ancillary charges through accounting 
reallocations or bundled service offerings,'' or might ``shift costs'' 
into ``surviving [cost] categories that remain recoverable in rate 
caps.'' We find such concerns speculative and hypothetical. The Wright 
Petitioners cite no evidence of any such action, nor of bundled service 
offerings of this type. Further, as Securus correctly observes, ``the 
Commission has not barred cost recovery for ancillary services, it has 
only barred assessing [these] charges separately.'' As the Commission 
stated in the 2024 IPCS Order, ``we include providers' reported 
ancillary services costs . . . in the used and useful IPCS costs that 
we use to set the rate caps.'' Thus, these costs remain recoverable and 
providers are without the purported incentive to shift them to separate 
recoverable cost categories. It is likewise incorrect to say these 
costs have been ``removed'' from rate-setting, as the Wright 
Petitioners allege; the fact that ancillary services costs are no 
longer segregable from IPCS-related costs

[[Page 63153]]

reflects the Commission's observation that ancillary services ``are 
inherent in the provision of IPCS.''
    21. Payment Processing Services. We adopt our proposal to require 
separate reporting of fees IPCS providers pay for payment processing 
services, defined as ``any service, including fraud detection, provided 
by a third party to process a Customer's financial transaction for 
which the Provider pays a fee.'' As our proposed instructions 
stipulate, the fees for these services include ``fees associated with 
chargeback amounts,'' but exclude ``the chargeback amounts 
themselves.'' IPCS providers and public interest parties agree that the 
collection of this information is appropriate. Further, the record 
suggests that the burden of reporting this information may be minimal, 
``because providers should ordinarily maintain records of payment-
processing vendors and related payments in the normal course of 
business.'' We find that information on ``the fees providers incur to 
process financial transactions,'' will enable the Commission to 
evaluate and determine policy about these services. Regardless of 
whether the speculation around increased costs proves accurate, the 
collection of this cost information will nonetheless be informative as 
to the size of any related expenses.
    22. As the Wright Petitioners and others highlight, we acknowledge 
that there may be internal costs associated with payment processing, in 
addition to and beyond those fees IPCS providers pay for third party 
services. To the extent that IPCS providers incur internal costs to 
provide payment processing services, those costs, whether related to 
IPCS or non-IPCS, should be included in providers' reporting and 
allocated among audio IPCS, video IPCS, safety and security measures, 
and other products and services as prescribed by the data collection. 
Moreover, as Securus argues, ``[t]his level of reporting is sufficient 
to incorporate those costs into the rate.''
    23. By contrast, we decline Securus' suggestion to broaden the data 
collection by inviting submission of ``data on funding trends and 
related costs.'' Securus proposes that providers elect to report: ``(a) 
the total number of payment transactions processed, (b) the total 
amount of dollars deposited, (c) the total number of fees paid to 
third-parties for IPCS providers to process these transactions, and (d) 
the total allocated costs incurred by the facility in setting up, 
maintaining, and administering payment services to customers.'' Securus 
does not identify how this information would contribute to the 
Commission's rate-setting efforts, nor does it estimate the increase in 
burdens involved for providers to supply this information. Without 
more, we are unwilling to increase the reporting burden, but we remind 
all providers that, to the extent they believe additional information 
may be valuable to the Commission, they are welcome to supplement their 
responses to the mandatory data collection or to file that information 
using the Commission's ex parte process.
    24. We likewise decline to broaden the collection to include data 
on ``payment processing fees collected by an affiliate of an IPCS 
provider related to deposit accounts that may be used to pay for 
IPCS.'' Pay Tel claims that because the current definition of 
``Provider'' fails to ``include the affiliates of the provider,'' our 
rules prohibit only providers from imposing ancillary service fees. 
Thus, Pay Tel claims that there has been an increase in ``the use of 
affiliates to manage deposit accounts (and therefore collect ancillary 
fees without regulatory oversight or restriction.'' We agree that such 
concerns are noteworthy, but this is not the appropriate forum in which 
to revise the Commission's IPCS rules. If such fees are being assessed 
by affiliates, providers are already obligated to report them.

E. Provider Payments to Facilities

    25. We adopt our proposal to require providers to report total 
monetary and total in-kind payments to correctional facilities for used 
and useful IPCS costs during the reporting period. Record comments are 
unanimous in their support for the collection of data on providers' 
correctional facility payments, ``whether under the reimbursement 
scheme adopted in the 2024 IPCS Order or the rate additive approach 
adopted in the 2025 IPCS Order.''
    26. The record is divided on whether we should collect additional 
data concerning facility payments. On the one hand, ViaPath and others 
contend that there is ``no additional information available to IPCS 
providers regarding how facilities use those payments.'' On the other, 
the Wright Petitioners argue that the Commission should ``collect more 
detailed data on provider payments to facilities.'' Arguments that 
information on provider payments to facilities ``should not be treated 
as a sufficient basis for a permanent facility cost additive'' are 
premature, and beyond the scope of this Order. They suggest that the 
Commission require providers to ``identify the payment type, amount, 
contractual basis, associated activity, and rationale for treating the 
payment as used and useful,'' and argue that these data will 
``preserve[ ] useful information for future proceedings.'' While more 
detailed information is often helpful, there is no showing that the 
value of such information would outweigh the burden of collecting it, 
nor is there adequate information to estimate the burden of providing 
these additional data on facility payments. We likewise reject the 
Wright Petitioners' recommendation to the extent it urges the 
Commission to collect these data on a facility-by-facility basis, as 
that would substantially heighten the burdens involved. Further, we 
acknowledge that providers are not typically in possession of this type 
of detailed information about facilities' costs. On balance, we decline 
to expand this collection to include additional data on facility 
payments beyond those proposed in the 2026 MDC PN.

F. Safety and Security Measures

    27. We adopt our proposal for measure-based safety and security 
cost reporting. We require providers to identify each discrete safety 
and security measures they provided in 2025, estimate the percentage of 
total safety and security expenses attributable to each measure, and 
then associate each measure to one or more of the safety and security 
categories previously utilized by the Commission. Adoption of this 
measure-based approach to cost allocation is based in the relevant 
language of the Martha Wright-Reed Act and will allow the Commission to 
collect more granular data, while giving providers increased 
flexibility to report and allocate their safety and security measure 
costs as they supply them instead of allocating them based on 
predetermined categories. This approach retains the seven safety and 
security categories the Commission previously used to allow for 
comparisons with previous data collections but stops short of requiring 
providers to allocate costs based on those categories. We also 
eliminate the requirement to further allocate those costs to the 
facility level, finding it unnecessary and unnecessarily burdensome. 
Collecting these data at the total company level will be sufficient for 
the Commission's rate-making purposes. While requiring measure-based, 
company-wide reporting does not resolve all issues regarding the 
collection of providers' safety and security data, we find that on 
balance it is best-suited to produce reliable data for the Commission's 
IPCS rate-setting purposes without creating undue reporting burdens.

[[Page 63154]]

    28. Commenters were generally supportive of using measure-based 
safety and security cost reporting. ViaPath stated that it ``endorses 
an approach that requires providers to report on the discrete measures 
they actually use.'' Pay Tel indicated that measure-based reporting 
``will enable providers to report their safety and security measures as 
they offer them rather than requiring them to allocate the costs of 
those measures to predetermined categories.'' It further observed that 
collecting measure-based data ``is both more granular and less 
arbitrary than the category approach.'' Some commenters expressed 
conditional support for measure-based reporting. For example, the 
Brattle Group noted that ``[m]easure-based reporting has the potential 
to improve transparency'' but also cautioned that the ``Commission 
should not assume that measure-based reporting will automatically 
produce better data.''
    29. Reporting Discrete Safety and Security Measures. We adopt a 
measure-based approach to the reporting of safety and security costs, 
which entails both the reporting of each discrete safety and security 
measure offered and the allocation of specific costs to each measure 
reported. Some commenters urge the Commission to more clearly define 
what a discrete measure is, and to provide clearer directions for the 
allocation of costs between measures to ensure that safety and security 
measure-based data is reported consistently by different providers. For 
example, Securus asserts that ``neither the Notice nor the proposed 
instructions supplies a principled basis for determining what 
constitutes a single discrete `measure.' '' The Brattle Group similarly 
recommends the Commission ``define a `discrete safety and security 
measure' '' and states that ``the value of the [measure-based] approach 
depends on standardized definitions.''
    30. We find rigorous, standardized definitions which differentiate 
various safety and security measures, as recommended by Securus and the 
Brattle Group, to be less central to measure-based reporting than the 
Commission's previous category-based reporting. The benefit of 
collecting measure-based data is that it relies on the responding 
provider to identify and define each separate safety and security 
measure it provides, and to allocate the costs associated with each 
discrete measure. This approach grants providers the autonomy to report 
and allocate costs in a manner best befitting their internal 
organization and accounting policies. While providers may take 
different approaches to reporting their safety and security measures, 
the data collection we adopt consists of several layers of reporting to 
ensure the Commission obtains a reliable and comparable dataset that is 
well-suited to rate-setting. That includes: (1) identification of 
individual measures in the Excel template; (2) assigning a percentage 
of total safety and security measure costs to each of those measures; 
(3) assigning a percentage of the costs assigned to each measure to 
audio IPCS, video IPCS, and other products and services; (4) 
designation of the category or categories with which the measure is 
associated; (5) the narrative description of each measure in the Word 
template; and (6) additional follow up or discussion as may be required 
to provide clarity to the Commission and assist providers with 
compliance. These complementary reporting requirements will position 
the Commission to ensure a reasonably consistent allocation of costs 
among discrete measures, and are sufficient for the Commission to 
discharge its statutory duty to consider costs associated with safety 
and security measures necessary to provide IPCS.
    31. We clarify that under measure-based reporting, providers are 
required to report each separately identifiable safety and security 
measure they offer. To the extent that a measure provides a 
distinguishable safety and security functionality, it should be treated 
as a discrete measure for reporting purposes. We note that aggregating 
multiple functionalities into a single or a smaller number of 
generalized reporting categories is contrary to measure-based reporting 
and would tend to revert to the category-based reporting required by 
the previous data collection. Securus argues that ``safety and security 
measures are largely integrated into IPCS service provider platforms,'' 
which ``renders any attempt at allocating safety and security costs 
into pre-defined categories a highly problematic exercise.'' We 
disagree that the largely platform-based nature of these measures 
effectively precludes the allocation of costs to individual safety and 
security measures. Allowing providers to estimate percentages of total 
safety and security costs attributable to different measures is based 
on approximation by design. Such an approach not only simplifies the 
reporting process but also gives providers an important margin of 
flexibility in allocating platform-based costs to individual safety and 
security measures. Additionally, while providers may take varying 
approaches to the allocation process, requiring them to associate each 
measure with one or more broader category will help minimize any 
differences that their varying approaches may involve.
    32. Allocation of Safety and Security Measure Costs. Securus raises 
concerns about the feasibility of allocating costs across the wide 
range of safety and security measures that it provides. It asserts that 
``attempting to allocate to each of these functions some percentage of 
overall safety and security costs and then further allocate those costs 
across services would be impracticable and highly imprecise.''
    33. While we agree that IPCS platforms pose a challenge to 
allocating costs, we disagree that such platforms represent an 
insuperable barrier to the reasonable allocation of safety and security 
costs for the purpose of this data collection. As Securus notes, 
delivering IPCS via a multi-functional service platform is standard 
practice in the IPCS industry. But it is also a reasonable presumption 
that providers maintain internal accounting systems that are capable of 
tracking the costs of different aspects of providers' platform 
investments with a reasonable degree of precision. For example, 
Securus' filings related to its waiver petition seeking extension of 
the Commission's deadline for per minute charges for video IPCS provide 
ample evidence of its ability to track costs for the billing portion of 
its platform. Further, larger providers like Securus are likely to have 
more robust internal accounting systems that would enable a reasonable 
allocation of costs to different functionalities. As such, we preclude 
providers from reporting their safety and security measure costs as a 
single item, and the instructions make clear that providers may not 
simply report costs as a single platform-based measure and thereby 
avoid attempting a reasonable allocation of those costs to individual 
measures pursuant to our cost allocation instructions.
    34. Continued Use of Safety and Security Categories. We retain the 
use of seven safety and security categories used in the 2023 Mandatory 
Data Collection but repurpose them and no longer require providers to 
allocate any costs to these categories. Instead, as discussed, 
providers must allocate costs to the discrete safety and security 
measures they report. By contrast, providers are only nominally 
required to associate the individual measures they report with one or 
more related categories, and the attribution of costs to each category 
is now unnecessary. Pay Tel asserts that retaining the categories 
``serves no practical purpose'' and is ``irrelevant for ratemaking 
purposes.'' But repurposing the seven categories to reduce reporting 
burdens on providers

[[Page 63155]]

does not eliminate their role in rate-setting. The seven categories 
continue to allow the Commission to evaluate safety and security 
measures categorically and additionally ensure a significant degree of 
comparability with the previous data collection, as urged by another 
commenter.
    35. Worth Rises advocates in favor of collecting additional safety 
and security data by subdividing the Commission's seven categories into 
multiple subcategories. Other commenters oppose doing so. We find that 
our newly-adopted measure-based collection will result in more detailed 
safety and security data than that of previous collections, while 
requiring providers to allocate costs to new subcategories would add 
significant reporting burden without ensuring the resulting data will 
be consistent and comparable and therefore usable for rate-setting 
purposes.
    36. Finally, Securus suggests that ``the Commission may be better 
served by engaging in the initial exercise of identifying safety and 
security measures it finds unnecessary, if any, an exercise that does 
not depend on the costs of those measures.'' Limiting the mandatory 
data collection to a subset of safety and security measures or 
categories, however, would require WCB and OEA to prejudge which 
measures are ``necessary,'' a determination that would exceed our 
delegated authority. We do not, however, foreclose such an exercise; to 
the contrary, retaining a categorical association of safety and 
security measures provides the Commission more information in support 
of a similar analysis in the future.

G. Site Commissions Reporting

    37. We adopt the proposal in the 2026 MDC PN, to significantly 
reduce reporting of site commission data. We eliminate most reporting 
of site commission data at the company-wide and facility levels and 
eliminate the need to distinguish between fixed and variable site 
commissions. To ensure the exclusion of certain 2025 site commission 
payments from the Commission's ratemaking process, however, we continue 
to require the reporting of summary IPCS- and non-IPCS-related site 
commission payments at the company-wide level, including total IPCS-
related monetary and total IPCS-related in-kind site commissions.
    38. Commenters were generally supportive of streamlining the 
collection of site commission data. FTI states that the ``proposal to 
report site commissions at the company-wide level is a vast improvement 
over previous reporting requirements.'' Pay Tel supports ``the 
collection of monetary and in-kind payments to correctional 
facilities,'' citing the need to ``monitor[ ] and enforce[ ]'' the 
Commission's site commission prohibition.
    39. We decline the Wright Petitioners' suggestion to increase the 
scope of the mandatory data collection to include 2026 site commission 
data to ensure providers have complied with the Commission's site 
commission prohibition that became effective on April 6, 2026. The 
Wright Petitioners assert that the effective date of the site 
commission prohibition ``gives 2025 cost data on site commissions a 
unique value, as it may be used as a comparison in the future to assess 
whether providers may have shifted any improper site commission costs 
into a different category.'' The Brattle Group states that ``2025 [site 
commission] data remain necessary to identify any site-commission 
amounts incurred before the prohibition and ensure that those amounts 
are excluded from ratemaking calculations.'' IPCS providers generally 
opposed this suggestion. We find that collecting an additional year of 
site commission data in 2026 will not contribute directly to the 
Commission's ratemaking process, which will be based on calendar year 
2025 data. The marginal benefit of enabling the Commission to monitor 
compliance with its site commission prohibition does not warrant the 
additional burden of collecting another year of data from all 
providers, particularly since the Commission retains its ability to 
monitor its rules in a more targeted, less burdensome manner.

H. Other Suggestions in the Record

    40. The record contains a variety of additional suggestions, 
comments, or requests for changes to the data collection as proposed in 
the 2026 MDC PN, which we review here. We decline to provide additional 
guidance on material acceptable for redaction, as Securus suggests. The 
Commission's confidential filing rules and the Protective Order adopted 
in this proceeding provide ample protection for sensitive, confidential 
data, and we do not revisit them here. While we generally encourage the 
disclosure of public information, particularly given the ``strong 
public interest in transparency surrounding rates, charges, terms, and 
fees for [incarcerated people's communications] services,'' we also 
recognize the need for companies to protect their trade secrets and 
sensitive financial information from disclosure. Broadly, under the 
FOIA and the Commission's implementing rules, the following records are 
not routinely available for public inspection: records pertaining to 
national defense or foreign policy, materials related solely to the 
internal personnel rules and practices of the Commission, materials 
exempted from disclosure by statute; trade secrets and commercial or 
financial information; interagency and intra-agency memoranda or 
letters; personnel, medical and similar files, disclosure of which 
would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy, 
and records compiled for law enforcement purposes. That said, we 
clarify that ``information regarding how [most providers] collected and 
allocated costs'' should be redacted. The data collection instructions 
include detailed cost allocation procedures for providers to follow, 
and idiosyncratic cost allocation by one company may well reflect the 
manner in which that company analyzes its own financials. The same 
holds true for how a given company reported cost data, which might 
conceivably expose confidential aspects of internal management 
processes. Without a developed record on the nature of that 
information, and on whether its publication would expose sensitive 
financial information or trade secrets, we are reluctant to require it 
be provided publicly.
    41. We also reject a proposal to require IPCS providers to submit 
additional documentation to serve as independent verification of their 
self-reported data. As additional oversight measures, Worth Rises 
proposes we require IPCS providers to submit copies of all financial 
statements provided to lenders and investors during the preceding year, 
and submit copies of usage and revenue reports for each reported 
facility for the preceding year. However, we find that our current 
instructions, which require providers to submit audited financial 
statements for 2025, are sufficient for the Commission's rate-setting 
needs. Requiring the submission of usage and revenue reports for each 
reported facility, other than audio and video IPCS demand and revenue 
reports, would exceed our previous data collections and, as ViaPath 
observed, ``would place a significant burden on both the Commission and 
IPCS providers'' without much corresponding benefit. Worth Rises 
provides a selection of reports tracking monthly usage and revenue for 
certain facilities. While we welcome the addition of these materials 
into the record, insofar as they provide useful information and data 
regarding the type and variety of information which IPCS providers

[[Page 63156]]

routinely track, we are cognizant of the burden requiring all providers 
file such detailed, monthly data for each facility they serve would 
entail. Again, granular facility-level reporting is already included in 
the data collection, and, accordingly, we decline to impose further 
reporting burdens without a clear showing of need and benefit. 
Similarly, as part of the mandatory data collection, we require 
certification by an officer of the company of the truthfulness, 
accuracy, and completeness of the information submitted, which provides 
the Commission with adequate assurance of the reliability of providers' 
submissions.

I. Timeframe for Provider Responses

    42. In the 2026 MDC PN, we sought comment on our proposal to 
require IPCS providers to file their responses to this data collection 
within 90 days of the release of this Order. In weighing the importance 
of conducting this data collection ``as soon as practicable'', the 
Commission previously found ``that requiring IPCS providers to submit 
data collection responses within 90 days of the release of an order 
approving the collection would not be unduly burdensome, particularly 
considering [the] proposals to streamline and simplify certain 
reporting requirements'' and we find no reason to disturb that finding 
today. We also sought comment on either longer or shorter response 
timeframes and received one comment opposing a shorter period to 
respond. We note that no commenters in the record opposed this 
proposal. ViaPath, in supporting the 90-day response timeframe, states 
that ``a significant delay in the completion of the [data collection] 
will undermine'' the Commission's goal to adopt permanent rate caps for 
IPCS. We agree and adopt our proposal to require responses to this data 
collection 90 days following release of this Order. Accordingly, we 
establish December 21, 2026 as the date on which provider responses 
will be due, unless the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has not 
completed its review of this collection under the Paperwork Reduction 
Act prior to then.

IV. Procedural Matters

    43. Final Paperwork Reduction Act Analysis. This Order contains new 
or modified information collection requirements subject to the 
Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA), Public Law 104-13. It will be 
submitted to OMB for review under section 3507(d) of the PRA. OMB, the 
general public, and other Federal agencies will be invited to submit 
additional comment on the new or modified information collection 
requirements contained in this proceeding. In addition, we note that 
pursuant to the Small Business Paperwork Relief Act of 2002, Public Law 
107-198; see 44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(4), we previously sought specific 
comment on how the Commission might further reduce the information 
collection burden for small business concerns with fewer than 25 
employees. We have assessed the effects of the data collection on small 
business concerns, including those having fewer than 25 employees, and 
find that to the extent such entities are subject to the collection, 
any further reduction in the burden of the collection would be 
inconsistent with the objectives behind the collection.
    44. Congressional Review Act. The Commission will not send a copy 
of this Order to Congress and the Government Accountability Office 
pursuant to the Congressional Review Act (CRA), see 5 U.S.C. 
801(a)(1)(A), because it does not adopt any rule as defined in the CRA, 
5 U.S.C. 804(3).

VI. 2026 Mandatory Data Collection Instructions, Templates, and 
Certification Form

    45. The instructions, template, and certification form for the 2026 
Mandatory Data Collection are available through this link: <a href="https://www.fcc.gov/document/2026-ipcs-mandatory-data-collection-order">https://www.fcc.gov/document/2026-ipcs-mandatory-data-collection-order</a>.

VII. Ordering Clauses

    46. Accordingly, It is ordered that, pursuant to the authority 
contained in sections 1, 2, 4(i)-(j), 155(c), 201(b), 218, 220, 255, 
276, 403, and 716 of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, 47 
U.S.C. 151, 152, 154(i)-(j), 155(c), 201(b), 218, 220, 255, 276, 403, 
and 617 and the authority delegated in Sec.  0.21, 0.91, 0.201(d), 
0.271, and 0.291 of the Commission's rules, 47 CFR 0.21, 0.91, 
0.201(d), 0.271, 0.291 and paragraph 81 of the 2025 IPCS Order, this 
Order Is adopted.

Federal Communications Commission.
Lynne Engledow,
Chief, Pricing Policy Division, Wireline Competition Bureau.
[FR Doc. 2026-20362 Filed 10-2-26; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6712-01-P


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