Video Relay Service Compensation

Issuing agencies

Abstract

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC or Commission) seeks comment on amending its rules on compensation from the Telecommunications Relay Services (TRS) Fund for providers of Video Relay Service (VRS) to address a number of special situations. The Commission proposes to allow VRS providers additional compensation for responding to a consumer's justified request that a Deaf Interpreter be added to a call. The Commission believes that providing additional compensation for such calls will advance the statutory objective to make functionally equivalent TRS available. The Commission also seeks comment on whether the TRS Fund should support: other methods of communication with eligible TRS users, such as cued language, as a specialized form of VRS; the routing of VRS calls to a Communication Assistant (CA) with a particular skill set or knowledge of a specific subject matter; calls between a VRS user who is deafblind and another VRS user; and, voice carry over (VCO) calls between a TRS user who is deafblind and a hearing user.