Small VRS Providers Push FCC To Follow Through on Proposed Rate Freeze

Three small video relay service providers pushed the FCC to raise and freeze their VRS compensation rate, which would otherwise drop further from its current $4.82 per minute under ongoing agency rate cuts. ASL Services Holdings, Convo Communications and Hancock Jahn asked for the relief in recent meetings or calls with commission officials, according to filings they posted Thursday in docket 10-51. In a Further NPRM, the FCC proposed a 16-month freeze, partially retroactive, from July 1, 2015, to Oct. 31, 2016, at a previous $5.29 per minute rate for small (“Tier I,” with fewer than 500,000 calling minutes per month) VRS providers (see 1511030064). The small VRS providers said the relief was justified by their costs, and the matter was urgent. Smaller providers face various financial and operational challenges that prevent them from gaining market share, much less becoming profitable, and don't have the same economies of scale as larger incumbents, ASL Services said. Its officials "concluded that unless the Commission can affirmatively compensate smaller providers in accordance with their service costs and implement other needed reforms to enable smaller providers to meaningfully compete, that the smaller providers will be forced to exit the provision of VRS, resulting in a severe limitation on consumer choice and services to underserved communities." The FCC should immediately "stabilize Tier I Providers and move toward a more appropriate rate-setting and transparency methodology," Hancock Jahn said. Convo believes the FCC has all the information it needs to freeze the Tier I rate, including that the company "began and ended 2015 with a total allowable costs per-minute which was higher than the applicable compensation rate." The commission should act "in the next few days," given the providers' need for lead time in planning operations, particularly given the "significant differential" between their allowable costs and the lower rate that took effect on Jan. 1, Convo said.