With the current surfeit of options available in the business communications field, an imaginative way of increasing customer base is being demonstrated by US network operator US Sprint Communications, Kansas City, Missouri, which looks set to corner the long-neglected market for convict communications needs. According to US Sprint, the new long-distance service, appropriately called Safe Block, will enable inmates of correctional facilities – that is, prisons – to enjoy the benefits and rates offered by US Sprint and its all-digital fibre-optic network. Unveiled at the American Correctional Association conference in Nashville, Tennessee, Safe Block is an on-site, stand-alone telephone control system that administers outgoing inmate calls using switching technology developed by BellSouth Corp and Hitachi America Ltd. Without Safe Block, inmates are restricted to more expensive operator-assisted reverse charge – collect – calls, which place the burden of cost on the inmate’s family – and the completion rate for collect calls from prisons is about one-third of the US-wide rate, resulting in high operator service costs. With Safe Block, inmates establish a long-distance fund, similar to a commissary fund, and receive an individual nine-digit authorisation code and an approved list of numbers they have selected to call. The inmate then enters the code and the phone number, Safe Block verifies the funding and destination number, and connects the call. If funding is unavailable, a warning sounds and the call is disalloed. When a call is completed, calculations are carried out instantly and the system automatically debits the inmate’s account. So now, not only can prisoners make full use of all the advantages of the US Sprint network, but administrators can eliminate surcharges to the caller, with special low to-the-facility rates that can be passed on in part or in total to inmates. US Sprint did not give any figures for the kind of revenue it is hoping the new service will bring in, but at least it can be assured that, in one sense at least, Safe Block is guaranteed a captive market.
