Comments on: FCC InterCall Ruling – impacting conference calling http://vartips.com/featured/fcc-intercall-ruling-impacting-conference-calling-220.html Stay informed of the latest Telecom News Mon, 23 Nov 2009 11:54:43 +0000 hourly 1 By: Gina Gonzalez http://vartips.com/featured/fcc-intercall-ruling-impacting-conference-calling-220.html/comment-page-1#comment-94 Gina Gonzalez Thu, 25 Sep 2008 21:24:49 +0000 http://vartips.com/?p=220#comment-94 I am intrigued with this topic as it raises some concerns for me as a video interpreter working in FCC mandated Video Relay Services and as a consumer. Several VRS providers are offering their deaf and hard of hearing callers conference call bridge services similar to Intercall's services. The service is free of charge to the users because the backdoor revenue it generates is at $6.64 (current reimbursement rate for VRS minutes) when callers call through their video relay service, which is the only way for users to use the service. All calls originating from that bridge are placed by its deaf employees and deaf contractors and they communicate through multiple video interpreters. It seems to me to be a conflict of interest because the VRS provider is being paid by the TRS fund to provide relay services and then offering a service that generates money for them at the expense of consumers (taxpayers) nationwide. They (VRS provider) are creating unnecessary traffic by scheduling as many as 15 conference call business related meetings lasting up to 1 hour per session with up to 35 participants (employees) a day, 5 times a week (avg. $80,000 revenue a day/19 million a year). I know because schedules of those calls are sent to us in the frontlines relaying the calls (no transparency in the service either)... The reason for Relay services is to enable deaf people to communicate with non deaf people. deaf people calling deaf people??? There are products that enable deaf people to call one another without burdening the TRS fund. There are multi-point video applications such as Worldvue for example... One provider I quit and reported to the FCC (seems nothing has been done; they are still going strong), outright paid callers $20.00 per 1 hour call to place these types of calls especially previously recorded calls, recorded infomercial messages, podcasts etc. provided that they use their video relay service. The callers would place the call and walk away uninterested in the message. I of course relayed the message to an empty chair and eventually went a bit nuts because I wasn't providing a legitimate service. There are so many questionable buisness practices. We are told to do our job and be transparent in everything that we do. I do not want to contribute to any activity that unnecessarily burdens our economy. I think transparency of my role is expendable in this case. Is this something I should report and who would be the appropriate party to report it to? Thank you for posting the information Gg I am intrigued with this topic as it raises some concerns for me as a video interpreter working in FCC mandated Video Relay Services and as a consumer.

Several VRS providers are offering their deaf and hard of hearing callers conference call bridge services similar to Intercall’s services. The service is free of charge to the users because the backdoor revenue it generates is at $6.64 (current reimbursement rate for VRS minutes) when callers call through their video relay service, which is the only way for users to use the service. All calls originating from that bridge are placed by its deaf employees and deaf contractors and they communicate through multiple video interpreters.
It seems to me to be a conflict of interest because the VRS provider is being paid by the TRS fund to provide relay services and then offering a service that generates money for them at the expense of consumers (taxpayers) nationwide. They (VRS provider) are creating unnecessary traffic by scheduling as many as 15 conference call business related meetings lasting up to 1 hour per session with up to 35 participants (employees) a day, 5 times a week (avg. $80,000 revenue a day/19 million a year). I know because schedules of those calls are sent to us in the frontlines relaying the calls (no transparency in the service either)…

The reason for Relay services is to enable deaf people to communicate with non deaf people. deaf people calling deaf people??? There are products that enable deaf people to call one another without burdening the TRS fund. There are multi-point video applications such as Worldvue for example…
One provider I quit and reported to the FCC (seems nothing has been done; they are still going strong), outright paid callers $20.00 per 1 hour call to place these types of calls especially previously recorded calls, recorded infomercial messages, podcasts etc. provided that they use their video relay service. The callers would place the call and walk away uninterested in the message. I of course relayed the message to an empty chair and eventually went a bit nuts because I wasn’t providing a legitimate service. There are so many questionable buisness practices. We are told to do our job and be transparent in everything that we do. I do not want to contribute to any activity that unnecessarily burdens our economy. I think transparency of my role is expendable in this case.
Is this something I should report and who would be the appropriate party to report it to?

Thank you for posting the information
Gg

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