BISVRS may be a stand-alone VRS provider. When I think of stand-alone, I think in terms of compensation from the Interstate TRS Fund. According to the NECA report, BISVRS is not one of the VRS providers that receive the fund – so they probably got their compensation through an existing VRS provider that is eligible to receive compensations from the Fund or through a state TRS program.

That said, it does not mean BISVRS is “less than” a VRS provider. BISVRS provides full service.

Without knowing the details, I cannot say exactly what kind of financial arrangement BISVRS has with other VRS provider or state TRS.

BISVRS is a deaf-owned. It is always good to see a deaf person managing and running VRS.

eyes open & thumbs up,

Ed

All I know is that Purple does oversee quality of interpreters. They have NQA (National Quality Assurance team) that oversees the quality of the service (interpreters included). Maybe, that explains their top-notch service.

BIS did have a contract with Hamilton Relay VRS until April 30, 2008 but does not have a contract with CSDVRS. BIS VRS is a stand alone company processing calls for revenue just like Sorenson, HOVRS and the other competitors in the industry today. We all want a “Piece of the Pie”…. therefore BIS VRS was established on May 1, 2008 and has been growing ever since.

As for the comment re: “Bad interpreters worked for HamiltonVRS belong to BIS so CSDVRS will be your hatred in turn. haha”…. I think it’s rather unfortunate that in a small technological industry that is attempting to “bridge the gap” with an even smaller industry, Sign Language Interpreting, that people can hold such a small and negative perspective on what is built to benefit them in the long run. Even though there are a plethora of Video Relay Services at the disposal of the Deaf/HOH/Speech Disabled communities, there is a shortage of “qualified”—NOT certified— interpreters to fill every seat in every call center. I hope that the optimistic portion of the Deaf Community realizes the work and acknowledges the strides of interpreters, administrators, tech teams and engineering teams to make Video Relay Service possible. After all, without interpreters we would all be out of a job!

If you mean petition that VIs should be certified or not? Let me do a vlog on this of which I will do pro and cons, and then see what you folks think of it. OK?

eyes open & thumbs up,

Ed

Thanks for your clarification. Hmm, this is something we, deaf community need to unite together to form a petition and send out emails to people to add their names to petition that might do the trick to get FCC attention.

What do you think? Taylor did that by creating peitition asked FCC to force Sorenson to open directory and seems to have succeed.

No. The FCC does provide language in regulation, but does not actually oversee quality of video interpreters. Theoretically, one could file complaints with the FCC on low-quality interpreting from VRS. A single complaint won’t do the trick. A large number of complaints from zillion VRS users will get FCC’s attention.

Ed B

Let me know. Thanks!