Inmate telephone and communication services

Greenville County, South Carolina, through its Procurement Services Division, is soliciting proposals via Request for Proposals #26104 for comprehensive Inmate Telephone System (ITS) and related communication services to serve the Greenville County Detention Center, which operates multiple facilities housing approximately 1,600 inmates on average daily population. The County seeks a qualified vendor to provide a turnkey system that includes debit and collect calling functionality, monitoring and recording capabilities, institutional-grade telephone equipment, correctional-grade tablets, mail scanning services, video visitation platforms, and digital request/grievance management systems, all of which must comply with Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules and rate caps established in the 2024 and 2025 Incarcerated People's Communications Services (IPCS) Orders. Required qualifications include the ability to provide all equipment at no cost to the County, maintain 99.5% monthly system uptime, provide 24/7/365 technical support, and replace defective equipment within twenty-four to forty-eight hours; vendors must also carry comprehensive general liability insurance of $1,000,000 per occurrence/$2,000,000 aggregate, automobile liability of $1,000,000, workers' compensation, professional liability/errors and omissions of $1,000,000, and cyber liability/data breach insurance of $2,000,000 per occurrence. Evaluation criteria are weighted across financial proposal (16.1%), technical solution (16.1%), qualifications and experience (16.1%), investigative and security features (16.1%), customer service and support (19.4%), and references (16.1%). Key deadlines include a mandatory pre-proposal meeting on April 29, 2026, at 10:00 a.m., vendor questions due by May 6, 2026, at 5:00 p.m., sealed proposals due May 21, 2026, at 3:30 p.m., anticipated award on June 19, 2026, with contract negotiations June 19-30, 2026, and notice to proceed issued June 30, 2026. The selected vendor must assume full operational responsibility within thirty days of execution and complete initial tablet deployment within sixty days.

No set-aside designations or restrictions on organization types are specified in the available documentation, and no incumbent vendor is identified for this procurement. The contract will be governed by South Carolina law with venue in Greenville County, and the contractor must comply with the South Carolina Illegal Immigration Reform Act. Pricing must strictly adhere to FCC prohibitions on ancillary service charges such as account fees, payment processing fees, and refund fees, which must be incorporated into per-minute rates for local, long-distance, intrastate, interstate, and international calls; however, the FCC's interim facility cost recovery additive of $0.02 per minute may be collected and remitted to the County. The contract term is not specified in the RFP, though the County retains the option to extend the agreement for up to four additional one-year renewal terms with thirty days' written notice prior to the termination date. No budget range or award value is listed in the available documentation; pricing will be determined through the competitive proposal process and documented in the final executed Services Agreement.