FCC Considering New Protections for TRS Customers
Telecom Relay Service providers gave mixed reviews to a proposal designed to prevent uncertified companies from providing unregulated service and to tighten certification requirements for Internet-based telecom relay providers. Companies must be certified to receive reimbursement from the interstate TRS fund. Petitioner Purple Communications framed its plan as an effort to protect consumers. But in comments at the FCC last week, some accused the company of trying to thwart competition by smaller companies.
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In January, Purple -- then called GoAmerica -- asked the FCC to ban “white labeling.” That’s a revenue-sharing arrangement for uncertified relay providers to offer service to consumers by billing through certified providers. Since the white-label providers aren’t certified, they aren’t subject to FCC oversight and regulation, Purple said. It also asked the commission to require all providers to register with the FCC rather than states and to look more closely at Internet-based relay certification applicants to ensure they have minimum amounts of capital and capacity (CD March 27 p8).
White-labeling arrangements “harm the public by undermining provider accountability” and misleading consumers, said Sorenson Communications, the largest certified U.S. provider of Internet-based TRS. When uncertified companies brand themselves as video relay providers, “users assume that those companies are bound by all the FCC’s rules governing VRS providers, including 911 requirements and interoperability,” it said. The American Network, another provider, said certification ensures consumers “have a clear path to bring violations of the FCC’s rules to the FCC’s attention.”
Hamilton Relay supported the “goal” of the Purple petition but worries that it would prohibit all relay service subcontracting, it said. “The problem is not that services are being subcontracted, but that services are being subcontracted without any disclosure of who the certified provider is, which leads to consumer confusion and ineffective enforcement.” To take care of that, the FCC should require the name of the certified provider to be “clearly identified to the end user” in all situations.
Some involved in white labeling defended the practice. The Communication Access Center, a certified provider that deals with Viable and other uncertified companies, said white labeling “has proven essential” to developing competition, creating jobs and innovating technology. In separate comments, Viable said “bill-partnering arrangements enable smaller [Internet-based TRS] entities to combine their resources to develop product and service offerings they otherwise would not be able to” provide, including Spanish- language and other “niche” products.
It’s not true that uncertified providers are unregulated by the FCC, Viable said. Under agency rules, a certified provider is responsible for all its services, including those provided by a subcontracted entity, the TRS company said. The commission may suspend or revoke certification from the certified carrier if it determines that the uncertified company has broken FCC rules, it said.
Purple met with more resistance to its proposals to consider capital and capacity when assessing certification applicants. “Those rules would erect major barriers to entry for aspiring providers and would diminish the robust competition that hitherto has advanced the key goals of section 225 of the Communications Act of 1934,” Sorenson said. Viable agreed that this “could effectively spell the end of small or minority business entrepreneurship” in Internet-based TRS.
Only Hamilton supported the idea. It’s unclear “that the current federal certification program for IP-based relay providers has sufficient threshold requirements and enforcement mechanisms to ensure that providers certified under the program are meeting minimum standards of service and other Commission requirements,” it said. The FCC may tighten criteria “without foreclosing competition,” it added. The proposed financial criteria aren’t “insurmountable,” and compare to FCC requirements for broadcasters and others, it said.
Most commenters also opposed requiring FCC rather than state certification. “Traditional TRS providers certified by a state-certified TRS program have been thoroughly vetted, and indeed the Commission certifies the state TRS programs, providing additional layers of protection,” Hamilton said. But the American Network agreed with Purple: “It is contrary to the public interest to have some TRS providers subject to the more rigorous FCC requirements and others simply operating ‘under contract’ to state programs.”