The Federal Communications Commission (FCC or Commission) has adopted a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) proposing to expand the Telecommunications Relay Services (TRS) fund contribution base for Video Relay Service (VRS) and Internet Protocol Relay Service (IP Relay) services to include intrastate telecommunications and VoIP revenues. VRS and IP Relay provide telephone service for Americans who are deaf, hard of hearing, deaf-blind, or have speech disabilities. Those services are currently only funded by contributions of providers’ interstate telecommunications and VoIP services. This NPRM proposes to follow the amendment to the Internet Protocol Captioned Telephone Service (IP CTS) contribution base, which had its funding rules revised year ago to include intrastate revenues.
