TRS Providers, Advocates Seek Changes to Draft Captioning NPRM

Consumer advocacy organizations and telecom relay services providers asked the FCC to make several changes to a draft NPRM on IP captioned telephone services (see 2211300072). Commissioners will consider the item Wednesday, which would seek comment on a proposal to establish a three-year compensation plan for IP CTS that would compensate providers based on the model used to provide the service. Some sought additional questions on how the proposed ratemaking would affect functional equivalence and the overall marketplace.

The proposed ratemaking approach has "significant consequences on the evolution of the marketplace for IP CTS," a coalition of consumer advocacy organizations told the FCC. The item should be intended "only as a stopgap to sustain existing models and delivery mechanisms until the commission is able to objectively assess those models and mechanisms and impose oversight accordingly," said the Hearing Loss Association of America, Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Inc., and the National Association of the Deaf, in a meeting with a Rosenworcel aide. The groups also met with Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau and the Office of Economics and Analytics staff, per an ex parte filing in docket 03-123.

The consumer advocates asked the FCC to consider emphasizing in the final item that the NPRM is "not intended to reach substantive conclusions or decisions about the many pending issues surrounding the commission’s oversight of the quality of captions and the delivery methodologies of IP CTS providers." The FCC isn't "in a position to broadly assess the quality and privacy" of automatic speech recognition (ASR), the groups said, asking that the final item seek comment on allowing IP CTS users to manually shift between communications assistants (CA) and ASR.

CaptionCall cited concerns about how the proposal could affect functional equivalence, in a meeting with aides to Commissioner Geoffrey Starks. Functional equivalence is "the statutory lodestar" for telecom relay services, but the draft item doesn't consider that "setting of IP CTS rates needs to be coordinated with the service and performance objectives to achieve functional equivalence for these consumers," CaptionCall said: "It makes substantial assertions and assumptions when it should be exploring a set of issues."

The IP CTS provider also raised concerns about how the proposed ratemaking will support quality metrics for the service and sought a question about the "adverse impacts on quality and functional equivalence if rates are set too low. It opposed the draft decision that software costs for proprietary endpoints wouldn't be allowable. "The draft NPRM also lacks a section on Digital Equity, which clearly is an important consideration," CaptionCall said. The provider raised similar concerns in separate meetings with an aide to Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau and the Office of Economics and Analytics staff.

The draft item "fails to address key aspects" of IP CTS, said Hamilton Relay in a letter to commissioners. It "insufficiently addresses" how functional equivalency, quality standards, additional allowable costs, and CAs affect costs, the provider said. It backed CaptionCall's suggested edits regarding functional equivalence and costs associated with transitioning calls from ASR-only to live CA services.

InnoCaption also sought minor changes to the draft item, in separate meetings with aides to Commissioner Geoffrey Starks, Brendan Carr and Nathan Simington. It also met with Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau and Office of Economics and Analytics staff. The IP CTS provider suggested the FCC seek comment on whether the per-minute compensation rate should use the communications access real time translation method to account for the differences between each IP CTS service mode.