Serving people with disabilities must be a high priority of U.S. broadband policy, said FCC Commissioners Michael Copps, Mignon Clyburn and Robert McDowell, during a commission field hearing at Gallaudet University, a school in D.C. for people with impaired hearing. “It’s not just something nice for us to do,” said Copps, who hosted the event. “It’s their right. … Access denied is opportunity denied.” Marlee Matlin, an actress who has won an Academy Award and is deaf, called for closed captioning in video media streaming online. The hearing followed an FCC order late Thursday clearing up outstanding technical issues related to the Nov. 12 transition of Internet-based telecom relay services to 10-digit phone numbers.

The telecom relay service industry confronts “a major challenge arising from the lack of FCC rules delineating the types of calls that are compensable and the types that are not,” said TRS provider Sorenson Communications. In a meeting last week with an aide to Chairman Julius Genachowski, Sorenson asked the commission to quickly open a rulemaking on the subject. “Although Sorenson and certain other providers have implemented some internal operating procedures to fill this regulatory void, the result is a patchwork of disparate approaches,” the company said. “Furthermore, it appears that some providers -- emboldened by the lack of enforceable rules -- have begun to manufacture calls of dubious legitimacy, apparently confident that the FCC will have no legal basis to bring enforcement actions against them.”

Telecom relay service provider Purple Communications urged the FCC to reject a Sorenson petition seeking a rule that only one TRS provider may assign phone numbers to any one device or IP address (CD Aug 6 p4). In an opposition filing Monday, Purple said the petition is “another attempt by Sorenson to leverage its near monopolistic control over the video relay service (VRS) endpoint -- or VRS customer premises equipment (CPE) -- market to strengthen its dominant position (estimated at between 70-80 percent) in the VRS services market.” Granting the petition would hurt competition and violate the civil rights of consumers to choose their own relay provider, Purple said.

Sorenson Communications urged the FCC to clarify what types of telecom relay service (TRS) calls may be legally compensated for by the interstate TRS fund. In a petition for rulemaking, the TRS provider said existing haziness on what’s acceptable “imperils the statutory goals and the integrity of the Fund by permitting providers -- especially Internet-based TRS providers -- to seek compensation for handling an ever-expanding array of calls of dubious legitamacy.” Rules could save the fund “millions of dollars per year,” it said. Sorenson also proposed requiring providers to try to stop “minute-pumping or other illicit schemes that could artificially inflate a provider’s call volume,” and rules giving TRS communications assistants “discretion to disconnect or interrupt” calls that likely shouldn’t be compensated.

Unless the FCC sharpens its outreach, thousands of people who are deaf may be left without functionally equivalent phone service, said consumer advocates and telecom relay service providers during a workshop Friday at the FCC. Video and IP-based relay users must register 10-digit numbers or they won’t be able to make non-emergency calls after Nov. 12 (CD Aug 12 p1). The deadline has already been extended over concerns about consumer confusion, lack of public education, and technical issues. But education problems remain, workshop attendees said.

Purple Communications urged the FCC eighth floor to seek comment on how to clarify and strengthen the agency’s telecom relay service rules. Purple met last week with Commissioner Meredith Baker and aides to Commissioners Robert McDowell, Mignon Clyburn and Michael Copps, according to an ex parte filing. Purple slammed the agency’s TRS rules in a petition last month (CD Aug 18 p4), saying they “have fallen short of the policy goals outlined by Congress and the FCC.” Consumer advocates for the deaf have endorsed the Purple petition. In a letter last week to Chairman Julius Genachowski, Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and seven other groups said Purple raised “legitimate questions regarding the rights and rules regarding TRS.” The consumer groups urged the FCC to clarify rules about what constitutes reasonable TRS provider outreach, providing free or discounted equipment and deaf consumers’ rights to functionally equivalent phone service in the workplace.

Video relay service provider CSDVRS said the FCC violated the Administrative Procedure Act when it required Internet-based relay providers to redirect users’ old toll-free numbers to their new 10-digit geographic numbers in the service management system 800 database. The FCC issued a “clarification” in a public notice last month (CD Aug 12 p5). In a petition for expedited reconsideration last week, CSDVRS said the “substantive change” hurt VRS competition, violated interoperability principles and undermined Communications Act requirements of functionally equivalent service. The rule prevents deaf consumers and businesses from receiving 800 calls made by a provider other than the called party’s default provider, CSDVRS said. That provides the consumer incentive to use only the provider with the most users, it said. The rule also hurts competition for consumers calling from public pay phones by removing 800 TRS numbers that some providers use to provide dial-around service, the company said. It violates interoperability by requiring hearing callers to use the provider chosen by the 800-number user to handle VRS calls, it said. And it restricts the opportunity of businesses owned by people who are deaf to “effectively compete with their hearing counterparts though a single 800 number that can be used by anyone wishing to call them,” it said.

The FCC should clarify “the extent to which relay services can be used to conduct outreach and marketing,” said video relay service provider CSDVRS. In a petition Tuesday, the company said “at least one” provider has “used third parties to hire deaf individuals to sit on videophones for hours on end for the purpose of calling hearing businesses via VRS … to secure agreements from these businesses to add website links” to the provider’s own site. “It is suspected that millions of minutes have been charged to the TRS Fund to serve out this function,” it said.

The FCC should add teeth to its telecom relay service rules, CSDVRS, one of the providers, said in a petition last week. The company called for specific financial penalties for violations. Customers are “being unlawfully misled by certain providers and their agents in order to garner more business and generate more compensable VRS minutes,” CSDVRS said. “Examples include threatening consumers with repossession of their videophones if they do not make more calls, telling consumers that their videophones will not function properly if they dial around to another provider, withholding features when a consumer does dial around, and other intimidating, abusive, and illegal tactics.” CSDVRS suggested a $50,000 fine for the first offense, $100,000 for the second, and a six-month ban from the interstate TRS fund for the third. For offending independent contractors or agents of VRS providers, the company suggested a $5,000 fine for the first offense, $10,000 for the second and $25,000 for any later violation. CSDVRS asked the FCC to require that an investigation be completed within three months of a complaint.

FCC rules and decisions on telecom relay services “have fallen short of the policy goals outlined by Congress and the FCC,” said provider Purple Communications. In a petition last week, the company asked the commission to “clarify and strengthen” its rules on the service. The FCC hasn’t provided comprehensive rules “but instead has issued periodic and sometimes contradictory declaratory rulings” that created marketing uncertainty, Purple said. And regulation hasn’t “kept up with the technological advances and growing deaf and hard-of-hearing participation in the workplace,” it said. The commission should at least clarify that TRS provider employees and contractors may make TRS calls, that multiparty calls between people who can’t hear and those who can are reimbursable under the interstate relay-service fund and that reasonable outreach and marketing practices to increase awareness of the service is lawful, Purple said. The petition follows a call this month by Purple Vice President Kelby Brick (CD Aug 12 p1) for the FCC to “reassert themselves as stewards for the basic civil rights of deaf and hard of hearing people to ensure communication access.”