Telecom relay service communications assistants need “a faster speed-of-answer benchmark, skills-based routing,...
Telecom relay service communications assistants need “a faster speed-of-answer benchmark, skills-based routing, and national certification,” consumer advocates for the deaf told the FCC in a June 28 meeting, said a recent filing (http://xrl.us/bndrzz). The advocates supported a speed-of-answer benchmark faster…
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than the 30-second average if feasible, the filing said. Relay service priorities will include split-screen technology, the filing noted. Challenges are that “VRS must be compatible with nextgeneration 9-1-1;” “interoperability tests that show more than one-half of all VRS phones have problems talking to one another;” and “the roles of VRS provider and equipment/SIP registrar are not clearly separated in the VRS reform proposals,” said Christian Vogler, director of Gallaudet University’s Technology Access Program, the filing said. “Just as teachers and other professionals are required to receive certification, so too should interpreters receive certification,” the advocates noted, despite apparent opposition from interpreters. They also want to choose specific CAs: “Consumers want to be able to select the communications assistant who handles their VRS calls, just as they are able to do with community based organizations that provide interpreters,” the filing said. The advocates included representatives from the Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, National Association of the Deaf and the Association of Late Deafened Adults.