The FCC’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, and Wireline Competition Bureau (Bureaus) have granted Cellular South a temporary, limited waiver of the FCC’s requirements to support text telephony (TTY) technology on wireless networks to the extent that they use Internet Protocol (IP) technologies. Cellular South’s waiver expires December 31, 2017, or upon the effective date of new FCC rules providing for alternative IP-based wireless accessibility solutions, whichever is earlier. The Bureaus also imposed the same conditions on Cellular South that they applied to AT&T and Verizon, which include requirements to notify customers that TTY technology will not be supported for calls to 911 services over IP-based wireless services, and periodically inform customers and the FCC of progress toward implementing new IP-based accessibility solutions.
