ZVRS Seeks Swift FCC Action on VRS Rates

The FCC "must adopt a new rate plan quickly" for video relay service funded by the Telecom Relay Service Fund, said ZVRS and Purple Communications CEO Sherri Turpin in a letter posted Thursday in docket 03-123 (see 2111150057). A third extension by six months of the rates that were set to expire in June 2021 "would have a devastating impact" on VRS, Turpin said, adding it would "amount to another rate cut in real terms." The FCC has "significantly cut rates over the past twelve months as a result of unanswered inflation," Turpin said: "The repeated extensions of the 2017 rates that have taken place have only served to create uncertainty for VRS providers and consumers and put providers under increasing pressure to do more with less in order to maintain service."