FCC fully plugs disabled TRS users into the phone system
The Federal Communications Commission has published the details of an Order requiring telcos to assign people with hearing and speech disabilities something that everyone else takes for granted: a ten-digit telephone number. Until this decision, "there was no uniform, consistent way for voice telephone users to call Internet-based TRS [Telecommunications Relay Service] users," the FCC's press release declares. TRS devices help consumers with disabilities access the public telephone system.
Actually, there still isn't a consistent way, but the FCC has told TRS vendors to put one together by the last day of this year. "Time is of the essence," the agency's Report and Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking warns. What the Commission proposes is a complex but doable plan that, at its center, requires participants to build a big central database of people who use TRS accessibility applications. That database will allow participants to enjoy the "functional equivalence" of a ten-digit ID.
The possible up to now
Title IV of the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) required telcos to construct a nationwide TRS system to let consumers who are hard of hearing, deaf, or speak differently to make phone calls. The FCC recognizes and regulates the three biggest TRS apps. Video Relay Services (VRS) allow consumers to use sign language with a Communications Assistant CA (sometimes also called a "video interpreter"), who then relays the information to the person with whom the caller wishes to speak. IP-Relay systems allow users to send Web based text messages to a CA, who then calls and neutrally communicates with the receiving party. IP Captioned Telephone Service allows a caller with some hearing to route calls to a CA, who provides captioning to the receiver using a computer.
While these services enable consumers with disabilities to access the telephone system, they don't provide them with telephone numbers. Some VRS providers give their customers proxy numbers matching their home or office IP address. But the firms store data about these proxies in databases that are vendor specific, not industry wide. That's always been the big stumbling block to offering TRS users their own universally recognized ten digit numbers, until now.
Tuesday's FCC Order requires TRS vendors to assign standard North American Numbering Plan (NANP)
NANPA : North American Numbering Plan Administration numbers to their customers either from NANP's administrators or from commercial number providers. These numbers must be geographically appropriate. And to make them widely identifiable, they must be logged into an industry-wide central database that links TRS-based NANP numbers to the users' related IP address. Commenters in the FCC's lengthy proceeding on this issue disagreed on how to construct this database. Perhaps the biggest dispute was over who would have access to it, some groups proposing an open, publicly accessible array of data tables. The Commission decided that a system available to Internet-based TRS providers only would be more secure.
On the other hand, almost everybody who filed on the proceeding agreed that this directory should be run by a neutral third party. "The neutral database administrator must be selected, and must construct the database, work with industry to populate the database, test the functionality of the database, and be prepared to support ten-digit numbers for Internet-based TRS users by December 31, 2008," the Order declares. The FCC's Office of Managing Director will pick an administrator, defined as a "nongovernmental entity that is not aligned with any particular telecommunications industry segment."
The Commission's Order also asks for further public guidance on a variety of issues. Should TRS users be held to a specific deadline to register with the new numbers-based service? How many numbers should a TRS consumer be allowed to request from a provider? The proceeding asks for help on how to protect TRS users from "slamming"—switching a consumer's phone provider without their permission, and "prextexting"—fooling a service into revealing customer data, then putting the intel up for sale.
All five Commissioners supported this ruling, but Michael Copps warned of "some confusion" during the process of creating the new system. "It's incumbent upon the FCC, providers, and consumer advocacy organizations to engage in a coordinated campaign to inform the disability community," he added. The move comes in the aftermath of a related decision: Effective on May 21st, the Commission ended all waivers for emergency TRS call management. TRS vendors must now accept and handle emergency calls under all circumstances.
