FCC Invites Input on TRS Fund Administrator's Proposals for Rates, Budget, Contributions
The FCC teed up the telecom relay service fund proposals of its administrator for the funding year starting July 1. Comments are due May 24, replies June 1 on Rolka Loube Associates' "proposed provider compensation rates, funding requirement, and carrier…
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contribution factor," said a Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau public notice in docket 10-51 in Thursday's Daily Digest. Rolka Loube projected the TRS fund needs $1.25 billion for FY 2018 (up from $1.14 billion currently) and a carrier contribution factor of 2.1 percent of U.S. interstate and international telecom end-user revenue (see 1705030034). It projected the IP captioned telephone service (IP CTS) needs $735 million and video relay service needs $460 million. The PN sought comment on Rolka Loube's proposed per-minute compensation rates, including of $1.95 for interstate and intrastate IP CTS and interstate CTS, based on a multistate average rate structure. The PN noted Rolka Loube's proposals for alternative rate mechanisms, but it said it was premature to select specific recommendations for IP CTS because the FCC has an open rulemaking on the methodology for that service; instead, it may seek comment on some of the recommendations as part of that rulemaking. For VRS, Rolka Loube recommended per-minute compensation rates of $5.29 for "emergent" providers, $4.17 for proposed Tier I traffic (0-2.5 million minutes monthly) and $2.83 for proposed Tier II traffic (minutes exceeding 2.5 million monthly). That would be closer to what smaller VRS providers have proposed than what industry leader Sorenson Communications sought (see 1704250057). The PN said the comments would be incorporated into a VRS rate rulemaking (see 1703230055). Another PN said the FCC plans to place into the record summaries of VRS providers' updated cost and demand information reported in 2017 for 2015 (actual), 2016 (actual), 2017 (projected) and 2018 (projected), subject to protective order safeguards. Affected parties have until Wednesday to object.