Inslee Letter to FCC
18 03 2010All..
Looks like Congress folks have noticed the recent FCC ruling. Five members of Congress have written a letter to the FCC regarding FCC’s recent ruling on VRS.
Other congress folks on the signature: Eliot Engel, Mary BonoMack and Barbara Lee.
Quotables:
"The Commission’s decision on how minutes generated by employees of relay providers are reimbursed through the Fund as business expenses could lead to unintended, but discriminatory, treatment of deaf/ hard of hearing, speech disabled, and deaf-blind employees."
"The Commission’s rules governing what types of relay calls are reimbursable need to be as clear and thorough as possible so providers are able to fully and proactively comply with the Commission’s rules."
"We also urge the Commission to make such decisions in the future exclusively through a notice and comment process to enable a wide range of input to aid the Commission in developing thorough and sound policies that ensure the provision of stale and functionally equivalent telecommunications access for deaf, hard of hearing, speech disabled and deaf-blind people."
eyes open & thumbs up,
Ed Bosson
Long Link:
http://www.edsalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Inslee-et-al-letter-to-Genachowski-on-DA-10-3141.pdf
Ed~
I want to say ‘Kudos’ for your excellent website, keeping me informed of what’s going on at FCC.
This letter from Jay Inslee and Lynn C. Woolsey, Members of Congress, would impact FCC’s handling of their vague language.
I am glad to hear that at least someone is Congress is protecting ADA. Kudos to those who spoke!
Is there a direct link on FCC’s website on where we can click on to view all of FCC’s rulings on VRS?
It will be interesting to see what is developing over at FCC over the VRS policies and such. There have been frauds from fake employees pretending to represent the companies like Viable and Purple and Sorosen. Hopefully that we can prevent such fraud from fakes. So that is all I will have to say about. Have a great day.
Yes! That is so relieved to acknowledge that not only us, but those hearing people who care enough about the misinterpreted ruling! Whew! Thanks for sharing this with us.
Live Free or Die,
Best way to do that is go to http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/dro and then click on “disability related”. Be warned it is like maze there, though.
edit “stale” to “stable” in the last paragraph of the quoted passage, but it works either way.
the comments quoted from the letter sound suspiciously like the NAD’s position, which is shamefully illustrative of how widespread their lack of understanding has gone. a NPRM is inappropriate because first, providers are not consumers; second, requiring a NPRM in this instance would make FCC policymaking beholden to EEO concerns rather than telecom access.
d/hh people would still have access to TRS — either via other provider or non-reimbursably via their own provider — the mandated access is assured. the concern is whether they will be employed… hardly a guiding consideration for the FCC. If any d/hh person is laid off by a TRS employer on the basis of his/her hearing, that’s an express case for the EEO Commission, not the FCC.
http://commerson.blogspot.com/
An open letter from Alfred Sonnenstrahl…
“…..notice and comment process….” Yup, that’s the way to do it. Thanks, Ed.
Looking at it in two different shoes: (ADA)
Hearing Business Owners- who hires an interpreter for a deaf employee during meetings, writes if off as a “business expense”.
Deaf Business Owners- who hires interpreters for the deaf employees during calls, is not a “business expense”. However you’re able to make profit off of them.
This is the most encouraging quote I have read from ANY governmental entity in a long time. Not only does it focus on clarifying FCC policies for VRS, but it stresses a reasonable process for enforcing these policies. Breathing sigh of relief. Maybe there is hope.
Ed, perhaps a post is in order regarding CSDVRS’ new petition to allow providers to recover the cost of in-house interpreting. (The argument for why these costs are not adequately addressed through rate-setting — to say nothing of why they are not a Title I-imposed provider burden anyway — is not really clear.)
Or perhaps a post on Purple’s SEC filing yesterday about them laying off 53 employees on March 19? Does anyone know how many of the employees were deaf?
I’d like to see all this (recent FCC Ruling) be shared among the majority. Been trying to get a story in the news, pray they’ll be interested.