FCC Acts to Reform Internet Protocol Captioned Telephone Service

The Federal Communications Commission today approved an item to reform Internet Protocol Captioned Telephone Service (IP CTS), a form of telecommunications relay service (TRS) that allows individuals with hearing loss to both read captions and use their residual hearing to understand a telephone conversation.

The item approved by the FCC:

  • Takes steps and explores others to preserve the viability of IP CTS for people with hearing loss who need it,
  • Set interim IP CTS provider compensation rates to bring those rates closer to actual average provider costs. (This move will save the TRS Fund nearly $400 million over the next two years.)
  • Adopts rules to limit unnecessary IP CTS use and waste of the TRS Fund, including a general prohibition on providing IP CTS to ineligible users.
  • Allows service providers to use fully-automated speech recognition (ASR) to produce captions.

The FCC is also seeking comment on measures to improve the compensation plan, funding, and structure of the IP CTS program and to curb provider practices that could be incenting use of IP CTS by people who may not need it. And to ensure service quality for users, the FCC is seeking comment on IP CTS performance goals and metrics.


FCC Acts to Reform Internet Protocol Captioned Telephone Service