Before the FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION Washington, D.C COMMENTS OF JOINT PROVIDERS

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1 Before the FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION Washington, D.C In the Matter of Structure and Practices of the Video Relay Service Program CG Docket No Telecommunications Relay Services and Speech-to-Speech Services for Individuals with Hearing and Speech Disabilities COMMENTS OF JOINT PROVIDERS ASL Services Holdings, LLC; CSDVRS, LLC ( ZVRS ); Convo Communications, LLC; Hamilton Relay, Inc.; Hancock, Jahn, Lee and Puckett, LLC d/b/a Communication Axess Ability Group ( CAAG ); Purple Communications, Inc.; Sorenson Communications, Inc.; and Sprint Corporation (collectively, the Providers ) file these comments in response to the Commission s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking regarding the waivers of various mandatory minimum standards for Internet-based telecommunications relay service ( itrs ). 1 INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY The Providers agree that, with the exception of the three-way calling requirement, the waivers should be extended permanently and that for the waivers that are extended permanently, the Commission should eliminate the requirement that providers file annual waiver reports. 1 Telecommunications Relay Services and Speech-to-Speech Services for Individuals with Hearing and Speech Disabilities; Waivers of itrs Mandatory Minimum Standards, Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, FCC , CG Docket No , 2013 WL (rel. Sep. 6, 2013) ( NPRM ). 1

2 Several of the Providers have already addressed the majority of the issues raised by the NPRM in their Request for Extension and Clarification of Various itrs Waivers ( the Petition ), 2 which is incorporated by reference. The Providers file these comments to update that Petition and to address a number of the specific questions raised in the NPRM. I. THE COMMISSION SHOULD EXTEND THE WAIVERS PERMANENTLY. A. Mandatory Minimum Standards for Features and Functions of Voice Telephone Services. 1. Types-of-Calls Requirement. Although the Commission s rules require TRS providers to handle all types of calls normally handled by common carriers including operator-assisted billing, collect calls, thirdparty billing, and sent-paid billing for long-distance calls 3 that requirement has been waived for providers of VRS and IP Relay. The Commission has consistently and repeatedly found that providers have no effective per-call billing mechanism to accurately identify and bill itrs users for long distance and operator-assisted calls, and that the costs of developing such a mechanism would be prohibitive. 4 The NPRM asks whether this justification continues to exist and whether the waiver should be extended permanently. The answer to both questions is yes: the Providers continue to offer itrs service without charge to their end users. As a result, itrs providers typically have no billing relationship with their customers that would allow them to offer billing options such as collect calling and operated-assisted billing. Nor could such a mechanism be established cost-effectively Request of Hamilton Relay, Inc., AT&T Inc., CSDVRS, LLC, Sorenson Communications, Inc., Sprint Nextel Corporation, and Purple Communications, Inc., for Extension and Clarification of Various itrs Waivers, CG Docket No and (filed Nov. 19, 2009) ( Petition ). 47 C.F.R (a)(3)(ii). NPRM, 2013 WL at *4 9. 2

3 Designing such a system would require providers to hire an entire new billing staff to generate bills, to purchase billing software, and to hire a team to collect payments and pursue bad debt. Doing so would be extremely expensive so expensive that the Commission has previously found that it is likely to be more costly to bill for these calls than to handle the calls for free, as has been done in the past. 5 That statement was true then and continues to be true today. The high cost of billing for such calls would be far outweighed by the near-zero demand for such calls. Indeed, because providers do not charge for long distance, they receive few if any requests for operator-assisted billing, collect calls, third-party billing, and sent-paid billing for longdistance calls. In the past, the Commission has also waived this requirement, in part, because of difficulties in determining a caller s actual location and in determining whether a call is local or long-distance. These difficulties will remain in the foreseeable future. Although users now must provide a registered location to facilitate 911 calls, this registered location is not necessarily the caller s actual location particularly for mobile calls. Moreover, even if a customer were billed based on his registered location, that would not make it any easier to determine whether a call involves toll charges. Because the call-handling center for an itrs call is often in a completely different city or state, a seemingly local call between a VRS user and a nearby neighbor may nevertheless involve an interstate or toll call. Similarly, a seemingly longdistance call between a user and a party across the country might not involve toll charges if the hearing caller is located in the same local calling area as the call center handling the call. 5 Telecommunications Relay Services and Speech-to-Speech Services for Individuals with Hearing and Speech Disabilities; E911 Requirements for IP-Enabled Service Providers, Order, CG Docket No , WC Docket No , 27 FCC Rcd. 7113, (2012). 3

4 In any event, there is no longer a need for the Commission to require the provision of features like collect, calling-card, and third-party billing. As the Commission points out, these requirements were developed for PSTN-based TTY relay services, with a goal of offering the same types of arrangements enjoyed by voice communication users to relay users. 6 But in a world where VoIP and cellular-telephone users routinely receive free long distance as part of their plan, operator services are simply less relevant than they were previously and are not necessary in order to guarantee functionally equivalency. 7 This is especially true in the itrs world, where users do not pay for long distance, which makes operator-assisted billing completely unnecessary. For all these reasons, the Commission should extend the waiver permanently. 2. Equal Access to Interexchange Carriers. The Commission has waived the requirement for equal access to interexchange carriers indefinitely for IP Relay and IP CTS but only on a yearly basis for VRS. Because itrs users do not pay for long-distance calls, it simply does not make sense to require providers to offer users access to their choice of long-distance provider. As such, the Providers believe the Commission should waive this requirement permanently for all itrs services. 8 In the NPRM, the Commission invites comment on the value to consumers of providing equal access to long distance carriers in an IP-based environment. 9 The Providers respectfully submit that there is no such value. Because deaf consumers do not pay for long-distance NPRM, 2013 WL at *4 10. Id. If the Commission is unwilling to waive the equal-access requirement permanently, then, for the sake of consistency, the Commission should at least extend indefinitely the waiver for VRS as there is no justifiable reason to differentiate VRS from IP CTS and IP Relay. NPRM, 2013 WL at *

5 charges, they have no interest in price shopping for a long-distance provider just as cellulartelephone and VoIP customers who do not pay separately for long distance do not typically have the choice of a separate long-distance provider. Even if there were some concern that some long-distance providers might offer substandard service, this problem is solved by competition among itrs providers: if a deaf consumer finds that the long-distance connections offered by one provider are not high quality, the user is free to choose a different itrs provider. Finally, it bears emphasis that the annual waiver reports filed each year by numerous providers make clear that it simply is not feasible for itrs providers to implement networking and routing solutions to allow itrs users to choose their carriers, 10 and there remains no reliable mechanism for carriers to distinguish between local and long-distance calls. Accordingly, the Commission should permanently waive the equal-access requirement for all itrs services or, at a minimum, extend the waiver for VRS indefinitely. 3. Pay-Per-Call (900) Calls. The Commission should also permanently waive the requirement that itrs providers handle pay-per-call (900) calls because itrs providers have no billing relationship with end users. The Commission asks about the technical feasibility of and benefits to requiring such a billing relationship so that providers could process pay-per-call calls. The Providers submit that, as explained above, requiring providers to establish such a billing relationship would be extremely expensive and for virtually no benefit. Indeed, as the Providers pointed out in the petition, deaf users make only a de minimis number of pay-per-call calls, and there is no evidence in the record that the information or services available through pay-per-call services are 10 See NPRM, 2013 WL at *5 n.69. 5

6 unavailable to itrs users through other methods that involve no payment per call. 11 Moreover, as Sorenson has previously pointed out, pay-per-calls would increase the risk that VRS providers would be subjected to sexual harassment a risk that simply isn t worth taking given the minimal demand for such calls. 4. Three-Way Calling The Providers agree that the Commission should terminate the waiver for three-way calling for IP CTS for the reasons stated in the NPRM. 12 As the Commission recognized in the NPRM, it is now feasible for IP CTS providers to offer this important feature Speed Dialing The Commission asks whether it should terminate the waiver of the speed-dialing requirement for IP CTS. The Providers have no objection to this proposal as long as the Commission clarifies that providers can meet this requirement by offering speed-dial capability such as one-touch dialing on the customer s itrs access technology ( CPE ). The Commission has frequently described speed-dialing as a feature that allows a TRS user to give the CA a short-hand name or number (e.g., call Mom ) for the user s most frequently called telephone numbers. 14 But for most providers, it simply isn t technologically possible to implement speed dialing in that way i.e., by having the TRS user make a request to the Communications Assistant ( CA ). That is because the IP CTS user typically dials his or her call (which may be connected through the user s LEC or VoIP provider) before ever being connected to the CA Petition at 7. NPRM, 2013 WL at * NPRM, 2013 WL at *7 18. Id

7 Therefore, the Commission should either clarify that the speed-dialing requirement can be met through one-touch dialing on the user s CPE or should make the waiver permanent for IP CTS. B. Mandatory Minimum Standards to Provide Specific TRS Features. 1. VCO and HCO. The Commission currently waives the requirement that itrs providers offer VCO and HCO except for two-line VCO and two-line HCO. As providers have explained each year in their annual waiver reports, this waiver continues to be necessary. Although many of the VRS providers now support one-line VCO with their newest CPE, many users have chosen to keep the legacy CPE that they are already using because they have already learned to use it and prefer not to have to learn how to use new equipment. The legacy equipment used by these users typically supports only two-line VCO rather than one-line VCO. Accordingly, although the Providers do not object to a requirement that VRS providers who provide VRS access technology to their users must offer at least one option that supports one-line VCO, the waiver is still necessary for the legacy VRS equipment still in use today particular for users who do not wish to upgrade their legacy equipment. The same is true for VCO-to-VCO and HCO-to-HCO, except that these features are technically feasible only through a dual relay call i.e., one with multiple CAs on the line. 15 Therefore, the Commission should clarify the compensability of such dual-relay calls before determining the scope of any VCO-to-VCO or HCO-to-HCO requirement for VRS. 15 Congress has revised the statutory definition of Telecommunications Relay Services to include TRS calls among two or more individuals. See Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010, Pub. L. No , 103. See also Implementation of Sections 716 and 717 of the Communications Act of 1934, as Enacted by the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010, Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, 26 FCC Rcd. 3133, n.90 (2011) (noting that the CVAA expands the definition of TRS to allow VRS conversations to take place with persons who may also have a hearing or speech disability but who use other forms of TRS ). Accordingly, 7

8 The Commission asks whether the Commission should condition the waivers on providers absorbing the additional cost of subscriptions for any additional telephone lines needed for the voice leg of the service. 16 Such a condition would be patently unlawful. The Commission has a statutory obligation to allow TRS providers to recover the costs caused by interstate telecommunications relay services. 17 To the extent the Commission requires providers to pay for the cost of users telephone lines as part of TRS, that would be a cost caused by itrs and must be compensable. Indeed, ordering universal provision of one-line VCO would actually harm consumers rather than help them. If the Commission ordered providers to support one-line VCO on all videophones, providers would be forced to require all users to install newer CPE that supports this feature even though some users strongly object to such an upgrade. Moreover, in light of the impending rate reductions for VRS, there is a serious question about whether VRS providers will be able to continue to give away new equipment on such a large scale. As a result, some legacy VRS users could be forced either to purchase a new videophone which in most cases would be cost-prohibitive or to go without service. Such a result would be a clear violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which requires the Commission to make TRS available, to the extent possible and in the most efficient manner, and to encourage the use of existing technology the Commission should clarify in this proceeding that multiple-ca calls are compensable and do not affect the waivers adopted in this proceeding. NPRM, 2013 WL at * U.S.C. 225(d)(3)(B). Id. 225(b)(1), (d)(2). 8

9 Finally, the Providers agree with the Commission s proposal to make the waivers for VCO and HCO permanent for IP CTS. As the Commission rightly recognizes, these particular functionalities simply do not apply to captioned telephone calls. As described in Section III below, the Providers have recommended minor edits to proposed rule Section (a)(3)(v) concerning IP CTS. 2. STS. The Commission has previously found that STS simply does not apply to VRS, IP CTS, and IP Relay. As the Commission previously explained, STS is a speech-based service, whereas VRS is a visual service using interpreters to interpret sign language over a video connection. 19 Similarly, for IP CTS, the Commission has recognized that the defining characteristics of IP CTS make STS inapplicable to the provision of this service. 20 These defining characteristics will not change. Accordingly, the Providers agree that these waivers should be extended permanently. 3. ASCII/Baudot Communications. The Providers agree that the requirement to support communications using ASCII and Baudot is simply not applicable to the Internet protocol with which itrs calls are made. 21 These waivers should be extended permanently Telecommunications Relay Services and Speech-to-Speech Services for Individuals with Hearing and Speech Disabilities, Report and Order, Order on Reconsideration, and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, CC Docket Nos , 98-67, CG Docket No , 19 FCC Rcd. 12,475, 12, (2004) ( 2004 Order ). Telecommunications Relay Services and Speech-to-Speech Services for Individuals with Hearing and Speech Disabilities; Internet-Based Captioned Telephone Service, Declaratory Ruling, CG Docket No , 22 FCC Rcd. 379, (2007) ( 2007 IP CTS Ruling ). NPRM, 2013 WL at *

10 4. Spanish Language Service over CTS, IP CTS, and IP Relay. The Providers agree that because VRS, IP Relay, and IP CTS are voluntary services, Spanish-to-Spanish and ASL-to-Spanish forms of these services are also voluntary. II. THE COMMISSION SHOULD ELIMINATE THE ANNUAL-REPORT REQUIREMENT FOR THE WAIVERS THAT ARE MADE PERMANENT. The Providers agree that the Commission should eliminate the annual-report requirement for the waivers that are extended permanently. Without exception, these waivers have been granted because the requirements at issue simply do not make sense in the context of itrs service or because of basic technical limitations that are unlikely to be eliminated any time in the near future. And it bears emphasis that many of the mandatory minimum standards were imposed to ensure that TRS providers offer service that is functionally equivalent to voicetelephone service, but because of evolutions in the way that both TRS and voice telephone service are provided, many of these minimum standards no longer make sense. Accordingly, it is a waste of providers resources to file reports each year, and it is a waste of the Commission s resources to review these reports. To give only a few examples, the requirement to support ASCII and Baudot simply does not apply to IP-based communications, and it never will. Similarly, as long as users pay nothing for itrs service which the providers expect to continue into the foreseeable future the requirement for operator-assisted billing simply makes no sense. The same is true of the requirement to offer STS, where the defining characteristics of itrs make this feature simply inapplicable. 22 In short, it is a waste of resources for providers to file reports making these same points each year, and the Commission should eliminate the requirement IP CTS Ruling, 22 FCC Rcd. at (for IP CTS); see also 2004 Order, 19 FCC Rcd. at 12,

11 III. THE COMMISSION SHOULD CLARIFY THE PROPOSED CODIFICATION OF THE RULE PROPOSED IN APPENDIX A. Finally, the Commission should clarify the wording of the proposed rule in Appendix A of the NPRM to make clear, among other things, that: (1) IP CTS providers need not provide two-line VCO or VCO-to-VCO; and (2) VRS providers need not provide one-line VCO, one-line HCO, VCO-to-VCO, or HCO-to-HCO unless the itrs user s itrs access technology supports those features. With these clarifications, the rule would read as follow (with changes to the proposed rule shown in red): * * * * * (a) * * * * * * * * (3) * * * * * * * * (v) Except as otherwise provided in this section, TRS providers are required to provide the following types of TRS calls: (1) Text-to-voice and voice-to-text; (2) VCO, two-line VCO, VCO-to-TTY, and VCO-to-VCO; (3) HCO, two-line HCO, HCO-to- TTY, HCO-to-HCO. VRS providers are not required to provide text-to-voice and voice-to-text functionality. IP Relay providers and VRS providers are not required to provide VCO-to-TTY and HCO-to-TTY. IP Relay providers and VRS providers are not required to provide VCO, HCO, VCO-to- VCO, or HCO-to-HCO unless the itrs user is using itrs access technology that supports those features. IP Relay providers and VRS providers are not required to support VCO-to- VCO or HCO-to-HCO between two callers using the same form of itrs. Captioned telephone service providers and Internet-based captioned telephone service providers are not required to provide (1) text-to-voice; (2) VCO-to-TTY, two-line VCO, VCO-to-VCO; (3) HCO, two-line HCO, HCO-to-TTY, HCO-to-HCO. 11

12 CONCLUSION For these reasons, the waivers should be extended permanently. Respectfully submitted, /s/ Angela Roth Angela Roth Managing Member, President and Chief Executive Officer ASL Services Holdings, LLC 3700 Commerce Boulevard Kissimmee, FL (407) /s/ Sean Belanger Sean Belanger CEO, CSDVRS, LLC 600 Cleveland St #1000 Clearwater, FL (727) /s/ Michael D. Maddix Michael D. Maddix Director of Gov t and Regulatory Affairs Sorenson Communications, Inc South Riverboat Road Salt Lake City, UT mmaddix@sorenson.com /s/ Jarrod Musano Jarrod Musano Chief Executive Officer Convo Communications, LLC 6601 Owens Drive #155 Pleasanton, California jarrod@convorelay.com /s/ David A. O Connor David A. O Connor Wilkinson Barker Knauer, LLP 2300 N Street, NW, Suite 700 Washington, DC T: E: doconnor@wbklaw.com Counsel for Hamilton Relay, Inc. /s/ Scott Freiermuth Scott Freiermuth Counsel, Government Affairs Sprint Corporation 6450 Sprint Parkway Overland Park, KS (913) scott.r.freiermuth@sprint.com /s/ John Goodman John Goodman Chief Legal Officer and Secretary Purple Communications, Inc. 595 Menlo Drive Rocklin, CA /s/ Kathleen M. LaValle Kathleen M. LaValle Jackson Walker L.L.P. 901 Main Street, Suite 6000 Dallas, Texas (214) klavalle@jw.com Counsel for Hancock, Jahn, Lee and Puckett, LLC d/b/a Communication Axess Ability Group 12