The unanswered questions about the impending arrival of new tablets in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation cause some anxiety about the devices. How I wish transparency and answers were available to disseminate, but as it is often said: “This is prison.”
The incarcerated deserve answers, but telephone and tablet technology typically sit outside the everyday drudgery of cops and robbers, crime and punishment, writs and appeals.
The telecommunications industry is governed primarily by regulatory law instead of the Penal Code. Ever see a police officer or prison guard explain rate structures or climb a utility pole?
As a mass communication major in college, I studied telecommunication standards and regulatory law, but my real training happened during the 14 years I worked in the industry in sales, customer service, operations, network administration, and as a contractor at several corporations. More than a decade of that time I spent at the now-defunct MCI Telecommunications, Inc.
Ironically, I was employed at MCI when it had the contract to provide telephone service in all state prisons in California. I started my career there in the early 1980s as AT&T divested its holdings and ended its government-supported monopoly, eventually breaking up the Bell System. Through that experience, I gained understanding of the movement of telephone traffic — using copper wires, fiber optics, and wireless — high-speed data, and the contracts and tariffs behind it all.
None of that makes me an expert in the field, though, because I was removed from society shortly after many changes took place in the industry — changes imposed in large part by the 1995 Telecommunications Reform Act. Some things, however, have stuck with me.
Now that a court has set aside the ViaPath Technologies (Global Tel*Link) contract with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, and the California Department of Technology, new tablets will be provided by Aventiv (Securus Technologies). But unlike AT&T’s monopoly of the past, this one inside the prison industrial complex continues.
In conventional markets for goods and services, consumers have the freedom of choice, so they get to choose the best provider. The prison phone market is different. State and local governments grant telephone companies exclusive contracts to create monopolies.
California prisoners and their family and friends stand face-to-face with a telephone monopoly created by the state and prison phone market. Consequently, these end users of service too often receive poor reception, weak wireless signals, no connectivity, dead zones, network outages, dropped calls, expensive double billing — especially for video calls — and more.
I have heard, read, and watched it all, and have written no less than 30 articles in San Quentin News about the prison telephone industry. I have done so not to flaunt some esoteric knowledge, but to educate prisoners who are the unwilling recipients of sub-standard service.
The newspaper is currently in the process of obtaining the Aventiv/Securus service level agreement published in a Standard Agreement with the CDCR and CDT; and through a public record request, its tariff on file with the California Public Utilities Commission.
Oddly enough, with tens of thousands of GTL/Viapath tablets issued throughout the CDCR over several years, there are no codified sections in the California Code of Regulations, title 15, (2023) regarding inmate use of third-party wireless tablets. Check it out. Perhaps the department’s Regulation and Policy Management Branch may see the need to issue a Notice of Change to Regulations to adopt a new section that will bring tablets into existence.
San Quentin’s local operational procedures (OP 0-1187, Statewide Tablet and Kiosk Operations, revised May 2023) has language that suggests that tablets exist, but it’s backed by 15 CCR, Sections 3006, 3135, 3282. Those sections cover contraband, paper mail, and wall phones, respectively.
Aventiv/Securus Technologies is the second largest provider of prison telephone service in the U.S. ViaPath/Global Tel*Link holds the top position. For years, these two companies have held their spots in front of other predatory prison telecommunications vendors, such as AmTel, ICSolutions, Infinity, Lattice, Legacy, NCIC, Pay Tel, Telmate, and Turnkey Corrections.
None of these companies operate out of benevolence or some altruistic motive to keep families of the incarcerated connected. They are not our friends. The market they dominate is a well-thought-out plan to be exploitive, simply because prisoners have no alternative “legal” method to communicate. We must kneel to the monopolistic predation of Big Business.
Currently, California taxpayers pay the costs for calls made from GTL phones and tablets. For now it makes little difference who the billed party is on the other end of the call.
One day free calls in California may end. Then what? Here’s a thought: What if calls from prison accessed the 10XXX dialing to direct their phone traffic to a different service provider’s network? The technological know-how and infrastructure is already in place. This would give all prisoners a choice of different service providers and billing rates. It is no different than choosing Access, Union Supply, or Walkenhorst’s to order a quarterly package.
Watch how fast service and pricing would improve if telephone service providers had to compete with each other — nationwide — for the “privilege” to provide service to prisoner consumers.
This would create real competition. It’s why MCI and the Department of Justice filed suit against AT&T, because the latter was a monopoly. It had no competition in the marketplace and used anti-competitive tactics to create artificial barriers to entry for other long distance telephone companies that tried to compete.
Prisoners should be mindful that Aventiv/Securus and Viapath/GTL are regulated utilities in California and in other states. This means they have to answer to state regulators. For CDCR prisoners, this is the California Public Utilities Commission. Any complaints about telephone service should be directed to the CPUC.
To file a complaint, a “person” must file a formal “written petition or complaint,” pursuant to the California Code of Regulations, title 20, Section 4.1; and California Public Utility Code, Section 1702(b). There must be a group of 20 or more complainants represented in the action. If the complainants have unresolved “trouble tickets” with their service provider, include the ticket number in the complaint language. This is one way to advocate for yourselves. Good luck!
Mail complaints to the following address:
California Public Utilities Commission
Consumer Affairs Branch
505 Van Ness Ave.
San Francisco, CA 94102-3298