Providers Disagree on VRS Rate Freeze

Video relay service providers disagree on freezing VRS rates, in comments posted Friday in FCC docket 03-123. Comments on the NPRM proposing a tiered-rate structure were due Thursday. VRS “is now at an inflection point,” said GlobalVRS. Tiered-rate compensation “has proven appropriate for the program,” it said, but the underlying methodology should be changed to consider provider scale and efficiency. Focus on functional equivalency and reject calls to freeze the current rates, said ZVRS (see 2107280044). A rate freeze would “erase much of the recent progress in VRS toward market balance and consumer choice, introduce uncertainty for smaller providers, and benefit only the dominant provider,” it said. GlobalVRS agreed. Rely on 2019 costs as a rate-setting benchmark instead of freezing current rates, said NCTA. Sorenson asked the commission to freeze the current rates for two years to “consider post-COVID VRS rates in light of the actual costs and demand for VRS that will exist in a post-COVID world.” Convo Communications agreed and said the FCC could consider extending the freeze to 2024 “given the current trajectory of the pandemic.”