The FCC, in the form of a consent decree, settled with Purple on FCC’s investigations of past practices of Purple.

Under the terms of the settlement, Purple must:

• repay $18.5 million to the TRS Fund over a period of five years, plus an additional $3.1 million in interest and penalties;
• make a $550,000 payment to the U.S. Treasury; and
• adopt a detailed compliance plan designed to ensure that the company strictly adheres to the Commission’s TRS rules.

The $22 million will be paid over a period of 5 years and includes penalties and interest.

In addition, the compliance plan requires Purple to do the following:

• appoint a compliance director
• establish an FCC Regulatory Committee of its Board of Directors to ensure high-level management oversight of its compliance efforts
• provide comprehensive training to all employees regarding FCC regulations
• conduct detailed compliance reviews of all programs involving the generation of new TRS business
• certify to the accuracy of its requests for reimbursement from the TRS Fund,
• review those submissions for anomalous calling patterns that could indicate misuse of TRS, and immediately take steps to correct any incorrect reimbursement requests.

The documents can be found at the FCC website with the following links:  (press release)  (consent decree).

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

Disclosure: Dr. Z is a contractor working with CSDVRS on several projects.

While everyone was busy or vacationing over the Labor Day weekend–the FCC website had a lot of additions to it on the VRS NOI (Notice of Inquiry) (link). While the comment period expired on August 15th, there was still opportunity for others to reply to the comments and Dr. Z will list the links for you all to read. The reply to comments deadline was on September 2nd. The most contentious subjects involved reverse auctions and tiered rates.

Reply to Comments links:
Convo
CSDVRS, LLC
Purple
Say-Hey, Inc.
Snap
Sorenson
Verizon

In addition, there were some comments made by providers to the FCC Declaratory Ruling and other matters issued on May 27, 2010 (link). The links for such comments are listed below. The most contentious subject was regarding use of Canadian interpreters to facilitate VRS calls among Americans.

Comments to Declaratory Ruling, Order and NPRM for May 27, 2010 links:
ATT
Government of Canada
Interpretel, LLC and PAH! VRS
Purple
Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf
Sorenson
TDI, NAD and Other Consumer Organizations
Verizon

It is expected that in the near future, the FCC will issue a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to propose rules that were reviewed during the Notice of Inquiry. After the comments to the proposed rules are reviewed, the FCC will then issue new rules that potentially could change how VRS is done here in America.

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

Disclosure: Dr. Z is a contractor working with CSDVRS on several projects.

This was from an ex parte filing by Sorenson’s law firm and taken from the FCC’s website. (link to filing)

On August 24th, a meeting took place between Sorenson executives, their attorneys and a representative of their investors who sits on their board; and representatives of the FCC.

The agenda was to give the FCC an overview of VRS and Sorenson’s part in development of the service. While the meeting did not focus on the Notice of Inquiry (NOI), it did touch on several subjects addressed in the NOI. One of the issues is what Dr. Z has a concern with on reverse auctions that is shared by most of the VRS companies who filed comments with the FCC on the NOI. Sorenson feels a reverse auction (using the rate of the 2nd lowest bidder) should be used as the basis for rate setting for VRS. Dr. Z is of the opinion that this only enhances Sorenson’s position as the dominant provider and does not take tiered rates into consideration.

It is important for us in the public to file reply comments with the FCC by September 2nd to emphasize the importance and fairness of tiered rates as this takes into consideration the various sizes of companies that make up the VRS industry.

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

Disclosure: Dr. Z is a contractor working with CSDVRS on several projects.

August 18th was the deadline for everyone to submit comments on the Notice of Inquiry that was issued on June 28th. All the major VRS companies responded. Dr. Z has provided links to the actual comments each has submitted to the FCC along with consumer organizations and state entities.

Be aware that most of the documents are 40-50 pages in length, some more–some less so it’s heavy reading right there. A lot of the comments are important and Dr. Z took the time to skim through all of these documents and it was interesting to note that Sorenson’s position differed from most of the other company’s comments when it came to tiered rates and reverse auctions.

A T and T

Ad Hoc Group of Sorenson Comms Bondholders

CONVO Communications LLC

CSDVRS, LLC (ZVRS)

Florida Coordinating Council for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing

Florida Public Service Commission

PAHVRS-1 -2 -3

Purple Communications

Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (RID)

Sorenson

Sprint

Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, Inc. et al.

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

Disclosure: Dr. Z is a contractor working with CSDVRS on several projects.