Every facility has some kind of telephone system for inmate use.
In most instances, the phone calls will be only collect calls. Since there are many inmates, and only a limited number of telephones, the calls are usually restricted to a maximum of fifteen minutes. In many federal prisons, there is a new system where an inmate has preapproved telephone numbers that he or she can call. The calls are not collect, but the charge is debited to the inmates account. To arrange all this takes time.