FCC Releases Order Giving Small VRS Providers Additional Compensation

The FCC issued an order Thursday giving small video relay service providers some relief, retroactively and prospectively, from a four-year schedule of VRS compensation rate cuts -- relief that was expected after the order was adopted this week (see 1603020033). Under that schedule, affecting all six VRS providers, the rate of the three small (“Tier 1”) providers (handling fewer than 500,000 minutes per month) was cut from $5.29 per minute to $5.06/minute on July 1, 2015, and cut again to $4.82/minute on Jan. 1. In the order approved by the commission without dissent and released Thursday, the FCC returned the VRS compensation rate of the three smallest providers to $5.29/minute for the period between July 1, 2015, and Oct. 31, 2016. The commission set the rate at $5.06/minute for the period from Nov. 1, 2016, to April 30, 2017, and at $4.82/minute for the period from May 1 to June 30, 2017. One of the three small VRS providers, Hancock Jahn, notified the agency this week it was withdrawing from the VRS market. It cited FCC rate cuts and other policies, and said the relief was "too late."