Small VRS Providers Seek Immediate FCC Freeze of Compensation Rate
Three small video relay service (VRS) providers asked the FCC to speed a proposed freeze of their compensation rate at its June 30 level of $5.29 per minute. ASL/Global Services VRS, Convo Communications and Hancock Jahn (also known as Communications…
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Access Ability Group/Star VRS) on Wednesday filed an emergency petition for a temporary nunc pro tunc waiver in docket 10-51 to waive their scheduled VRS rate cuts to the extent necessary to implement the rate freeze for 16 months, including retroactively. The FCC recently issued a Further NPRM proposing to give the small, (Tier 1) VRS providers (which handle fewer than 500,000 calling minutes/month) such relief for 16 months through Oct. 31 (see 1511030064), and is seeking comments by Dec. 9 and replies Dec. 24 (see 1511180026). The three small providers asked the FCC for a freeze “as promptly as feasible but in no event later than December 31, 2015 -- the day before the next VRS rate reduction is scheduled to take effect” because the commission wouldn't otherwise normally act in time. They said the FNPRM acknowledged the average per-minute VRS costs of the small providers exceeded their $5.06 compensation rate, which took effect July 1. “Consequently, the Tier 1 Providers have been operating at a loss,” the three companies said. “Absent Commission action before January 1, 2016, the Tier I Providers’ operating losses will be compounded by the further Tier I rate reduction that is scheduled to take effect this January 1st,” they said. “This further rate reduction will fundamentally undermine, if not jeopardize, the ability of the Tier I Providers to continue to participate in the Commission’s VRS program.” The petition noted the request is consistent with the FCC's 16-month proposal "but is not intended to be understood as the small providers' implicit concurrence with the FNPRM's proposed end of the freeze period." ASL, which targets Hispanics, made a separate filing in support of the petition that said its situation is particularly urgent because of the costs of providing interpreters fluent in three languages: American Sign Language, English and Spanish. VRS provides video-connected interpreters for the deaf and hard of hearing to communicate with phone callers.