FCC Set to Approve IP CTS Rate Cut, Though Quibbles Expected

FCC commissioners will likely approve an order 5-0 Wednesday cutting IP captioned telephone service (IP CTS) rates, though FCC Democrats Jessica Rosenworcel's and Geoffrey Starks' concerns are expected to be discussed, FCC and industry officials said. Among the biggest is how well automated speech recognition (ASR) technology will work to generate captions. There has been little input from consumers since the draft was proposed, officials said. An FCC spokesperson didn’t comment.

The item would lower the current $1.58 rate to a $1.30 cost-based rate in two steps, allowing $1.42 for the remainder of the current fund year and $1.30 for 2021-22. The first cut would be effective Dec. 1 (see 2009090048). A further notice asks several questions about ASR.

Expect a 5-0 vote, said Roslyn Layton, visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute: “The tiering regime must come to an end. ... Two new ASR-only providers have been approved this year.” Lawyers active in the proceeding said the concerns raised are balanced by Chairman Ajit Pai’s desire to rein in IP CTS rates as part of general reform while he's still chairman.

A report on ASR by Stanford University is raising concerns on the eighth floor. “There is worry … that speech recognition systems suffer from racial bias, a problem that has recently come to light in several other advancing applications of machine learning, such as face recognition, natural language processing, online advertising, and risk prediction in criminal justice, healthcare and child services,” the study said.

Rosenworcel concurred when the FCC approved the last major IP CTS item in June 2018 (see 1806070021). “The IP CTS program is under stress,” Rosenworcel said then: “The approach here is backwards. It puts the cart before the horse by introducing automatic speech recognition into the IP CTS program before we address our most basic regulatory responsibilities.”

In a paper released Monday, Layton said the FCC should go further. The FCC would “cut the reimbursement rate to $1.30 per minute in 2021, a move projected to save another $200 million,” she said: But it "declined to implement reimbursement by reverse auction, a reform that would modernize the program with a proven market-based framework and transition it from outmoded regulatory ratemaking.”

Sorenson Communications and CaptionCall asked the FCC to raise additional questions in the FNPRM, including on alternatives to establishing standards, “whether and/or the extent to which publicly releasing test results data alone would provide an adequate means to gather input” and on “the types of measurements that would keep CTS service quality current, ensure functional equivalence to the extent technically feasible, and not impede ongoing technological innovation and advancement,” the companies said in docket 13-24.

IP CTS provider Hamilton Relay was among commenters asking the FCC to move to tiered rates. “Despite the clear consensus in the record supporting a sustainable 4-tiered rate methodology for IP CTS, the Commission has instead proposed to adopt an archaic, single-rate, cost-based methodology approach that is unsupported in the record and was long ago discarded by state and federal regulators,” the company said.

“At a high level, Sprint Accessibility is concerned that, if adopted, the Draft IP CTS Item will undermine providers’ ability to continue offering proven, high-quality IP CTS services that rely on Communications Assistants,” T-Mobile said: “The contemplated rates and rate methodology would not compensate IP CTS providers for their true costs of providing service.”