NECA Interestate TRS Report
26 02 2009Folks..
I have been obsessed with reading Number Order and interpreting the order; obsession was still with me when I did the vlog on the NECA report so I made mistakes. Here is the corrected vlog. Sorry..
One part of the report is for month of December 2008. VRS minutes were the highest at 8,087,897 and and the second one was 5,400,543 with IP Relay.
You really cannot compare Interstate TTY relay service with VRS and IP Relay because Interstate TTY relay service does not include local and intrastate minutes (within the state). VRS and IP Relay do include local, intrastate, and long distance minutes. So keep that in mind. Interstate TTY relay service was at third with 784,479 minutes.
Wow! Interstate TTY relay service was the staple for deaf/hoh for many years, and now has taken a nose dive compared from past (not compared to VRS and IP Relay) - TTY is on its way to join the antiques. I remember Texas’s high was around 650,000 calls a month; when I last left TPUC, last August, it was like around 115,00 calls a month. Big nose dive.
Keep in mind the minutes of Interstate TTY Relay service only means out of state minutes. The local and intrastate TTY relay minutes are not in the report because states, not federal, are responsible for paying for these minutes. We do not know the total minutes of entire USA for TTY relay service.
What I find interesting is the difference between two services as you can compare VRS with IP Relay as they are for entire USA. The total cost for IP Relay was $6,947,798 and the total cost for VRS was whooping $51,232,601. Even though the difference of minutes was little over 2 1/2 million minutes, and the difference in dollar is little over 44 million smackeroos. That’s just for one month.
What was even more significant is that IP Relay and VRS use Internet and wireless network, not landline. I wish the report would show the difference between wireless network and Internet in IP Relay minutes. It would be interesting to see the difference between pager and computer use of IP Relay.
Once portable VP becomes widely used, it would be interesting to know the difference between wireless network and Internet use for portable VP. I hope the FCC will require NECA to do that report; it would give gov’t, VRS providers, and us deaf/hoh persons valuable insight. (hint hint FCC folks 
Anyway, no wonder the cost of VRS gets into media news more often these days.
eyes open & thumbs up,
Ed
Ed,
I beg to differ slightly with your comment that VRS and IP Relay do not use landlines. The term “landline” as commonly used refers to the terminating junction for the end user’s telecommunications device as it comes from the local exchange switch station. This would apply to the case for TTYs which are land line devices because the last leg in the call is from the LEC switch to the wall jack.
However, if I were to call using VRS or through a text based IP Relay call, the last leg in the call to the called party may go to a land line phone. There is no way for VRS or IP Relay to avoid using a landline termination if the called party is a landline user. So in an absolute sense, IP Relay and VRS calls can use landlines in the call transmission.
Additionally, wireless and IP based calls make numerous hops through the different transit points (tower to tower or tower to satellite to tower) and sometimes towers are connected by landlines to carrier switching trunks to be connected to other carrier trunks before going back as a wireless call. Admittedly these are all digital mediums and would only work if the landline connection is a DSL endpoint or have a digital filter for the call to be received by an analog landline user.
Whether this information will play a factor in the identification of call types for IP-enabled calling modes and have it translated in a way that NECA can assist in setting rates or whatever, I don’t know, but I thought your wonderful readers would benefit from having a fuller picture.
Keep up the great work, mon frere.
bob
Bob,
You’re right, of course, when you look at this way. I was referring to the reimbursement rates.
You’re one of those few relay administrators who understand the gritty detail of how this works out. I’m sure there are quite a few readers who will appreciate your remarks, so thanks, Bob.
eyes open & thumbs up,
Ed
Hi there! I’m thinking about providing VRS to the deaf since many of my family members are deaf and have een ignored by many VRS companies. My question is, what’s the difference between VRS and IP Relay? Thanks.
Jeff,
If you want to provide VRS, not only will you need to know the difference between VRS and IP Relay, you would need to know federal rules for telecommunications relay service. Of course, you will need lot of funds to make it work. VRS uses video phones and IP Relay use computer or pager for relay services.
Cheers….
Ed
Hi, Ed,
Thank you so much for this vital info. I wish there were intelligent and well-informed people like you out there who are aware of VRS. I did some research and found that many VRS companies use video phones. However, there are video client software that replace the need for physical video phones, thus, cutting costs of purchasing video phones. They work the same way as traditional video phones but are software-based. What do you think of this?
Also, how much money does VRS entails to make it work? I am very interested in VRS to help my deaf community. I would prefer that you email me discretely, if possible, and not on the forum. I hope you understand. Again, thank you so much!
from,
Jeff