CTIA, CEA Seek Permanent Small Business Exemption in Mobile Accessibility Rules

"The issues raised in the Further Notice highlight the challenges of promoting, or not impeding, the development of innovative products and services while ensuring that regulatory oversight adequately addresses consumer needs and does not hinder industry innovation,” CTIA said (http://xrl.us/bmr33c). CTIA said the FCC should adopt a “user-centric approach” allowing users to make real-time video conference calls through a common platform.

CTIA also said the FCC should not regulate “non-real-time features and functions” that may be offered with interoperable video conferencing service, such as video mail. CTIA asked the FCC not to mandate “a particular technological approach or solution” for making mobile Internet browsers accessible to the blind or visually impaired. “Adopting any particular technological solution or approach would freeze technology and innovation in place, to the detriment of blind or visually impaired consumers,” CTIA warned. CTIA asked the FCC to permanently extend the exemption for small businesses: “Rather than being arbitrarily temporary, the exemption should last as long as an entity continues to meet the SBA definition of a small business.”

CEA said the FCC should allow a permanent small business exemption to “avoid unduly burdening small businesses,” based on the SBA definition (http://xrl.us/bmr35n). “Many of the small manufacturers who would be covered by the ACS rules, absent an exemption, have had little, if any, prior exposure to FCC regulation,” CEA noted. “However, many of these entities have regular interaction with the SBA and are familiar and conversant with the SBA rules and size standards.” CEA also said the CVAA can’t be interpreted as applying to “Internet browsers generally.” The accessibility requirements of the CVAA apply only to “Internet browsers provided with telephones used with public mobile service,” the filing said.

NCTA said the FCC should allow flexibility in addressing the CVAA requirements (http://xrl.us/bmr4af). “In enacting the CVAA, Congress took care to ensure that the new accessibility requirements would not come at the expense of innovation and investment,” NCTA said. “As Congress recognized, innovation in a competitive marketplace often serves the needs of individuals with disabilities better than regulatory fiat."

CTIA, CEA and NCTA agreed that the FCC should reject a proposals by the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Telecommunication Access and the Information Technology Industry Council, which would require service providers to satisfy a six-page list of “testable functional performance criteria” to demonstrate that their ACS products are accessible, usable and compatible. The further notice sought comment on the proposal. “NCTA is concerned that adding this proposed array of burdensome testing prescriptions on top of the various CVAA performance objectives already in place would unduly restrict industry flexibility,” NCTA said.

But various groups representing the disabled said the small business exemption should not be made permanent by the FCC (http://xrl.us/bmr39i). “The Commission’s achievability standard already provides all entities a means to seek exemption from the accessibility obligations ... if compliance is unachievable,” the groups said. “Small entities as well as large entities can avail themselves of this exemption when they are truly unable to achieve accessibility.” The record “does not contain sufficient information demonstrating that small business as a generic group will be unreasonably burdened by having to make individual case showings of unachievability,” the filing said. Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, the National Association of the Deaf, the Hearing Loss Association of America, the Association of Late-Deafened Adults and the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Consumer Advocacy Network signed the filing.