Ed’s Telecom Alert

Hello everyone!

Since I became part of Convo Team, I have become very involved with activities of Convo.   Now that the affairs of Convo have become bit more settled plus all the recent happenings – see the links below the comment, I will be more involved with Edsalert.

Be aware that I own Edsalert and I also am co-founder of Convo so take the message for what it is.
As all of u know, I consider VRS as my baby, having been involved in its development from day one, but VRS belongs to every single one of you as well so I am disappointed and sad how VRS has turned out as I know many of you are disappointed and sad, too. 
 
The recent events of FBI arrests due to the frauds, FCC holding back some of the funds from most of VRS providers due to the questionable video calls such as video conference calls just to ramp up the reimbursable minutes, and CBS news on VRS fraud, one would be concerned that VRS would be shut down. 

I want to let you all know that shutting down VRS by the FCC or Congress will not happen.   Congress and FCC also even FBI want VRS to continue, but want to stop the illegal VRS calls.  VRS has gotten so big that shutting down VRS will cause lot of loud complaints from the deaf and hard of hearing persons as well from the national agencies or organizations representing deaf/hoh.  

The sources tell me that VRS will not be shut down.   What is likely to happen, though, we will see new or modified regulations on VRS from FCC and possibly from Congress.  Both VRS providers and VRS users need to continue to provide feedback to the FCC and Congress on the importance of VRS continuing.  Benefits of VRS clearly makes lives of deaf/hoh so much better that we must let the world know of that. 

Here are the links:   

Justice

CBS News

eyes open & thumbs up,

Ed