GAO Offers TRS Recommendations
GAO recommended the FCC “develop specific TRS [Telecommunications Relay Service] performance goals and measures, conduct a robust program risk assessment, and improve the communication of TRS’s rules and procedures,” GAO said in a 55-page report released Friday. The FCC agreed…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
with the recommendations and said it would work to implement them, GAO said. “The FCC is establishing an ongoing testing program that will assess the quality of the handling of TRS calls, as well as provider compliance with TRS rules,” noted FCC Managing Director Jon Wilkins in an April 17 letter to GAO, anticipating a “robust risk assessment” to come as it addresses recommendations. “Because of the lack of specific TRS performance goals -- and specific performance measures crafted around those goals -- it is difficult to determine in an objective, quantifiable way if TRS is making available functionally equivalent telecommunications services, and it is difficult for FCC to manage the program in a proactive, results-oriented manner,” GAO said. “FCC has designed some internal controls for the TRS program, but lacks a comprehensive internal-control system to manage program risks.” GAO directed the report to Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.