Most of you are well aware the FCC is proposing a rate cut.

This cut would be bad for us. It would not be catastrophic to us and it would not bankrupt us.

However the rate is very damaging to ZVRS. As all of you know, we have made huge progress over the last year and we have brought many new customers to the Z.

We are company that is in the building mode. Our investors have taken no money out of our company. They have had 0 return on investment. We have been running the company at break even continuing to invest in new technology, better service and better awareness for the deaf community.

The FCC proposes to drop our rate approximately 10%. You can imagine if we were at break even and had a 10% cut in revenue we would have to cut costs.
We would also find ourselves in a position where we would have to cut back on new initiatives and the quality of service (interpreting) would suffer.

We are going to fight the FCC on this rate cut and we believe that the FCC will listen to our argument and will move the rate up.

The concept of a rate decrease when our expenses are going up is very hard to handle and we will fight.

For our employees, keep doing your job and the great work you have been doing. Have faith in our ability to move the FCC to a logical rate and have faith in the FCC.

I have seen Sorenson ask employees to send “recommended letters to the FCC. “

If you feel compelled to do so, send an email or letter feel free to do so. If you do not feel compelled please do not send anything.

I hope you can speak from your heart about the great progress we have made at Z, the honest company we are and how we continue to change and improve deaf lives every day. It is very important that we not lose our momentum. We are about 4% of the size of Sorenson. We must insist that the FCC protect the small VRS providers like Z.

In regard to Sorenson, they have been hit with a proposal for a potentially damaging rate that we believe is not fair to Sorenson. It does not provide for a fair rate of return or allow for all the costs of VRS. We support Sorenson in their fight at the same time we support the FCC and their effort to allow ALL providers a fair rate of return and not one provider a huge return while others struggle. We believe the FCC will increase the proposed rates in all tiers and the VRS services will continue to thrive.

–Sean Belanger

Dr. Z cares about your communication access.

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