Sorenson 'Conditionally Elects' to Join VRS Trials, Citing Rates; VRS Item Still Looms
Sorenson Communications told the FCC it "conditionally elects" to participate in trials of "skills based routing" and deaf interpreters authorized by the commission's March video relay service order (see 1703230055). Sorenson's participation was conditioned on its review of compensation rates…
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the agency adopts for the 2017-2018 funding year starting July 1. Once the new rates are set, Sorenson will notify the agency within 60 days whether it will "continue to participate" in the trials, said its filing Thursday in docket 10-51. The company also conditioned participation on receiving additional time to begin the trials, "such as 180 days from the setting of the 2017-2018 rates," plus gaining flexibility on how long it would participate in the trials and "upfront clarification on how 'success' will be evaluated" for participants "to ensure it is done in an objective and timely manner." Sorenson had asked the FCC to extend the Thursday deadline by 60 days and an Aug. 1 trial commencement deadline by 180 days after the new rates are adopted (see 1705190035). The FCC didn't put a draft VRS rate order on the tentative agenda for commissioners' June 22 meeting as some thought possible (see 1705300057). An item still could be adopted, including on circulation, before the current VRS rates expire on June 30, we're told. VRS and other telecom relay service stakeholders continued to make various filings this week in the docket, including comments on non-rate parts of VRS notices that were attached to the order authorizing the trials. TRS fund administrator Rolka Loube Associates revised its net cash requirements to $1.137 billion for FY 2017-18 in an update proposing a "unchanged" contribution factor of 1.959 percent of carrier interstate and international telecom end-user revenue. It previously projected a net cash requirement of $1.26 billion and a contribution factor rise to 2.1 percent (see 1705030034).