FCC Members Agree 5-0 to Ask Questions on 2 Parts of TRS
FCC members agreed 5-0 to seek comment on revised internet-based telecom relay service rules, expanding the TRS fund contribution base for internet-based TRS of video relay service and IP relay service. Only Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioner Mike O’Rielly had statements on the NPRM, which they didn’t read at Wednesday's meeting. O’Rielly said the agency doesn’t go far enough. The NPRM hasn’t been controversial, with no filings since it circulated three weeks ago. Democrats, who will control the agenda next year, had no statements.
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In 2019, the FCC revised similar interim funding rules for another form of the TRS, the IP captioned telephone service, said a news release. “Today’s NPRM proposes a similar expansion of the TRS Fund contribution base for VRS and IP Relay to include intrastate telecommunications and VoIP revenues.” The proposed change would distribute the $575 million annual cost of these services “more equitably among telecommunications providers and users, helping to maintain the long-term sustainability of the TRS Fund and the important services it provides, all without increasing the size of the Fund,” the FCC said.
“We have a long way to go in terms of controlling unsustainable TRS spending, which has ballooned to over $1.6 billion for the current funding year,” O’Rielly said. “Unfortunately, certain market-based improvements that I have advocated, such as distributing subsidies through reverse auctions, rather than inefficient rate regulation and artificial competition, haven’t quite yet won the day, even though they would make a real difference in addressing the fund’s needs and controlling costs to make it sustainable.”
O’Rielly voted yes, but said that “failing to address the underlying spending problem is incredibly myopic and that its elimination of asymmetric burdens will be of limited value.” States shouldn’t be allowed to “double-dip” on intrastate contributions, “or to assess fees on the same intrastate revenues as the federal government to support a state VRS or IP Relay program,” he said.
Commissioner Brendan Carr said on a call with reporters he also has concerns. “The first bucket is waste, fraud and abuse,” followed by “unnecessary spending,” Carr said. “We need to treat every single dollar like they’re … our own dollars,” he said: “The American people are ultimately paying into this through line item charges.” The USF contribution factor is “as high as it’s ever been” and keeps setting new records, he said.
The FCC needs to ask some big questions, Carr said. “We need to do some serious thinking about what’s the best, most efficient way to get tech-neutral, high-speed service to the truly highest cost parts of the country,” he said: “I don’t have a concrete idea on the path forward.”
VRS is now the second-largest TRS program, and IP relay generates more annual minutes than all state TRS programs combined, Pai said. “The steady growth of these programs and their associated costs indicate that the time has come to put the funding for these programs on a more equitable, sustainable footing,” he said: The NPRM starts the process “moving away from funding VRS and IP relay through contributions based solely on interstate telecommunications revenue.”