The FCC on December 4th announced they will host a workshop on December 17th on VRS reform.

The following is the first of 3 agenda items:

The most efficient way to deliver VRS, particularly whether the service should remain a competitive service or be provided via competitive bidding

This means that the FCC is asking for everyone’s thoughts on how the VRS service should be provided. One extreme calls for competitive bidding with one provider doing all the VRS calls while the other extreme calls for competitive service like what we have today.

Dr. Z is of the opinion that we should have competitive service. If we were to have one provider with the lowest bidder, we will be stuck with their interpreters, with little control over the quality of the service, being at the mercy of some decisions the lowest bidder has. We in some way have a situation today with a dominant provider who is trying to call the shots and not working very well with the rest of the providers and we end up having a service that is not 100% functionally equivalent. It is Dr. Z’s hope that the FCC will continue the competitive service we have with more controls in insuring that the service is 100% functionally equivalent–things like missed calls and caller ID which are still not perfectly compatible today to be made compatible.

Dr. Z (and the FCC) cares about your communication access.