FCC Sets TRS Compensation Rates, $1.5 Billion Budget for New Funding Year
The FCC adopted new telecom relay service provider compensation rates for the funding year beginning July 1 and set a $1.5 billion budget for the TRS fund with an industry contribution factor of 2.8 percent of applicable telecom revenue. The…
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new per-minute provider compensation rates "for interstate TRS,1 shall be: (1) for traditional TRS, $3.2592; (2) for speech-to-speech relay service (STS), $4.3902; and (3) for captioned telephone service (CTS), $2.0007," said a Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau order Friday in docket 03-123. It said the rates were based on the recommendations of the fund administrator RolkaLoube Associates and the agency's review of the relevant data. The per-minute compensation rate for internet-based TRS will be "for Internet protocol (IP) CTS, $1.75" and "for IP Relay, $1.40," the order said. The per-minute rates for video relay service providers are divided into tiers based on minutes of use: Emergent (1st 500,000 monthly minutes) for VRS providers with 500,000 or fewer minutes in a month, $5.29; Tier I (1st 1,000,000 monthly minutes) for VRS providers with more than 500,000 minutes in a month, $4.82; Tier II (1,000,001 to 2,500,000 monthly minutes), $3.97; and Tier III (monthly minutes exceeding 2,500,000), $2.83."