BT and Siemens face probe over prison phone call costs
June 25, 2008
The BT Group along with Siemens is to possibly face an official probe over allegations that calls made from payphones in prisons are up to eight times higher than ordinary payphone customers for a 60 minute phone call.
The National Consumer Council will launch a complaint to Ofcom, who regulates telecommunications, over the charges under BT and Siemens deals with prison authorities in England and Scotland.
A similar complaint has been made against call charges in hospitals. Acting chief executive of the National Consumer Council, Philip Cullum said prisoners “appeared to be paying over the odds with what would be justified by the costs provision.” The director of the Prison Reform Trust, Juliet Lyon is supporting the move, said “This is the classic captive market.”
BT run the phone systems in prisons in England and Siemens operate the network in Scotland.
The National Consumer Council have figure that claim an ordinary outside five minute phone call from a payphone would cost 40p, from a prison the same phone call would cost 55p. A 60 minute call from would cost £6.55 from a prison compared to 80p from an outside payphone.
BT have argued that a comparison cannot be made between its prison system and any other payphone service because the prison payphone system requires a great deal of investment in security and monitoring.
The Scottish Prison Service said it did not make any profit from the Siemens run operation. All bidders for the prison contract offered the same tariff; Siemens won the contract because they installed a new network at no charge to the tax payer.
Siemens have said its prices reflected the fact that the new network they installed contained security features.
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