Video Relay Providers, Advocates Disagree on Call Handling Rules
Video relay service providers and accessibility advocacy organizations disagreed on how the FCC should modify its rules on at-home interpretation services and experience requirements for communications assistants (CA). Advocates said CAs should have a certain number of years' worth of experience, while providers again asked to eliminate the cap on the number of minutes a CA may handle through at-home work, in reply comments posted Tuesday in docket 03-123 (see 2301100081).
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The "benefits of eliminating the cap" on the number of monthly minutes a VRS interpreter working remotely may handle "outweigh maintaining a cap," said Sorenson Communications. "There is universal support for permitting providers to handle a greater percentage of minutes from their at-home operations," Sorenson said, adding it "affords providers greater flexibility in managing their workforce and reducing the cost of providing the service." Sorenson disagreed with accessibility advocacy organizations' calls to require annual certifications from CAs, noting existing safeguards implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic were "fully tested and proven." It also noted all VRS providers backed eliminating the three-year experience requirement for at-home interpreters.
"The benefits of having no limit on the calls handled by at-home CAs are well presented in the record," said ZP Better Together. The cap is "artificial," ZP said, and eliminating it "would not lead to an absolute removal of traditional call centers." There's also "unanimous support" in the record from VRS providers that the experience requirement be eliminated, the provider said. The requirement "does not add value to the quality of interpreting" and instead is "an impediment to hiring qualified interpreters," ZP said: "Eliminating the experience requirement will not lower the standard as VRS providers continue to use their existing hiring criterion that meets the CA qualifications under the FCC rules."
"VRS providers and users recognize the challenges caused by the current shortage" of CAs, said Convo Communications. Eliminating the cap would "substantially increase" the number of qualified interpreters available and "enable providers to be more selective" in hiring "higher caliber interpreters," Convo said. The company also backed increasing the percentage of minutes a provider may contract to an interpreter to 30% of its monthly call minutes.
A coalition of accessibility advocacy organizations said the cap on monthly at-home minutes should be increased to 80% instead of eliminating the cap. There must be a "balance between increasing the supply of CAs with implementing practical safeguards to preserve quality," said Telecommunications for the Deaf & Hard of Hearing, Inc., National Association of the Deaf, Cerebral Palsy and Deaf Organization, Communication Service for the Deaf, Deaf Seniors of America. National Association for State Relay Administration, National Black Deaf Advocates, and Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf in joint comments. The cap "remains necessary until there is more evidence to show that quality of service will not suffer, whether at home or in call centers," the groups said.
The advocacy groups also said they weren't "convinced" the three-year experience requirement should be eliminated, "nor do we have knowledge about any possible technology that would allow supervisors to monitor and mentor these at-home interpreting services." Remote CAs "should not only be qualified, including with three years of experience, but also prepared and supported in conducting at-home calls," they said, asking that VRS providers be required to show how they will provide training and monitoring before the experience requirement is eliminated.