FCC Increases IP Relay Compensation Rate to Keep Sprint in the Business
The FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau raised the IP Relay compensation rate to $1.37 per minute starting Nov. 15 for the remainder of the 2014-15 fund year, which ends June 30. Purple exited the market Nov. 14 and Sprint…
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became the sole provider offering the service. The bureau provided a special rate of $1.67 per minute, applicable to any monthly minutes in excess of 300,000, through May 15. The bureau said Monday it took the step at the request of Sprint to preserve the service, which is critical to the deaf, hard of hearing, deaf-blind or people with speech disabilities. “Our purpose is to ensure that the remaining provider is reasonably compensated for providing service, including service to users who migrate from the departing provider, and that IP Relay service will continue to be provided without interruption to eligible consumers, especially those who rely on IP Relay as their sole or primary source of functionally equivalent telephone service,” the bureau said. The rate had been $1.0309 per minute. Sprint had warned that the current compensation rate doesn't reflect its allowable costs and its costs will increase due to Purple’s exit, the bureau said. “In addition, Sprint asserts that even before Purple’s announced departure, it had been planning to terminate its IP Relay service and had begun winding down its business. Sprint adds, however, that a sufficient upward adjustment of the rate would enable it to stay in the business, and thereby enable it to serve both its current customers and any new users migrating from Purple.”