Access to Video Conferencing

<RULE> FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION <CFR>47 CFR Parts 14 and 64</CFR> <DEPDOC>[CG Docket Nos. 23-161, 10-213, and 03-123; FCC 24-95; FR ID 261149]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Access to Video Conferencing</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Communications Commission. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In this document, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC or Commission) takes steps to ensure the accessibility of interoperable video conferencing services (IVCS). The Commission provides additional clarity on how the Commission's accessibility performance objectives apply to interoperable video conferencing services (IVCS), modifies those performance objectives to ensure access to IVCS, and addresses how the Interstate telecommunications relay services (TRS) Fund will support the provision of Video Relay Service (VRS) and other forms of TRS in video conferences. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> <E T="03">Effective date:</E> Effective January 13, 2025, except for instruction 6 (the amendments to § 64.606(g)(6)), which is delayed. The Commission will publish a document in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> announcing the effective date for the amendments to § 64.606(g)(6). <E T="03">Compliance date:</E> The compliance date for §§ 14.21(b)(2)(iv) and (b)(4) is January 12, 2027. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Ike Ofobike, Disability Rights Office, Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, at (202) 418-1028; email: <E T="03">Ike.Ofobike@fcc.gov;</E> or William Wallace, Disability Rights Office, Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, at (202) 418-2716; email: <E T="03">William.Wallace@fcc.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> This is a summary of the Commission's Second Report and Order, in CG Docket Nos. 23-161, 10-213, and 03-123, document FCC 24-95, adopted on September 26, 2024, released on September 27, 2024. The Commission previously sought comment on the issue in a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking ( <E T="03">NPRM</E> ), published at 88 FR 52088, August 7, 2023. The full text of this document is available for public inspection and copying via the FCC's Electronic Document Management System (EDOCS) website at <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/edocs</E> and via the Commission's Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS) website at <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs.</E> To request materials in accessible formats for people with disabilities (Braille, large print, electronic files, audio format), send an email to <E T="03">fcc504@fcc.gov</E> or call the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau at (202) 418-0530. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Synopsis</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> 1. Under section 716 of the Communications Act, as amended (the Act), 47 U.S.C. 617, providers of advanced communications services (ACS) and manufacturers of equipment used for ACS must make such services and equipment accessible to and usable by people with disabilities, if achievable. Service providers and manufacturers may comply with section 716 of the Act either by building accessibility features into their services and equipment or by choosing to use third-party applications, peripheral devices, software, hardware, or customer premises equipment (CPE) that are available to individuals with disabilities at nominal cost. If accessibility is not achievable through either of these means, then manufacturers and service providers must make their products and services compatible with existing peripheral devices or specialized CPE commonly used by people with disabilities to achieve access, subject to the achievability criterion. The Commission is directed to adopt “performance objectives to ensure the accessibility, usability, and compatibility of advanced communications services and the equipment used for such services.” 2. The Act defines <E T="03">advanced communications services</E> as: (A) interconnected VoIP service; (B) non-interconnected VoIP service; (C) electronic messaging service; (D) interoperable video conferencing service; and (E) any audio or video communications service used by inmates for the purpose of communicating with individuals outside of the correctional facility where the inmate is held, regardless of technology used. 47 U.S.C. 153(1). <E T="03">Interoperable video conferencing service,</E> in turn, is defined as: [a] service that provides real-time video communications, including audio, to enable users to share information of the user's choosing. 47 U.S.C. 153(27). 3. In 2011, when initially adopting rules to implement section 716 of the Act, the Commission attempted to determine what Congress meant by including the word “interoperable” as part of the term <E T="03">interoperable video conferencing service.</E> Finding that the record before it was insufficient to decide this question, the Commission sought further comment on the issue. 4. In June 2023, after refreshing the record on the definition of “interoperable video conferencing service,” the Commission resolved this definitional issue. The Commission found no persuasive reason to modify or limit the scope of the statutory definition. Therefore, the Commission concluded that its part 14 accessibility rules apply to all services and equipment that meet the statutory definition. Given the extended pendency of questions regarding the application of part 14 of the Commission's rules to video conferencing, the Commission recognized that some service providers might need additional time to comply with those rules, and therefore allowed IVCS providers until September 3, 2024, to come into compliance with its existing part 14 rules. 5. <E T="03">Telecommunications Relay Services and Interoperable Video Conferencing Services.</E> Enacted in 1990, Title IV of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), codified as section 225 of the Act, directs the Commission to “ensure that interstate and intrastate telecommunications relay services are available, to the extent possible and in the most efficient manner,” to people in the United States with hearing or speech disabilities. TRS are defined as “telephone transmission services” enabling such persons to communicate by wire or radio “in a manner that is functionally equivalent to the ability of [a person without hearing or speech disabilities] to communicate using voice communication services.” There are currently three forms of internet-based TRS: Video Relay Service (VRS) “allows people with hearing or speech disabilities who use sign language to communicate with voice telephone users through video equipment and a live communications assistant (CA);” Internet Protocol Relay Service (IP Relay) allows an individual with a hearing or speech disability to communicate with voice telephone users by transmitting text via the internet; and Internet Protocol Captioned Telephone Service (IP CTS) permits a person with hearing loss to have a telephone conversation while reading captions of what the other party is saying on an internet-connected device. The provision of internet-based TRS is supported by the Interstate TRS Fund, maintained through mandatory contributions from providers of telecommunications service, interconnected VoIP service, and non-interconnected VoIP service. Three non-internet-based forms of TRS—traditional TRS using text telephony (TTY), Captioned Telephone Service (CTS), and Speech-to-Speech Relay (STS)—are also supported in part by the TRS Fund and are available through state TRS programs. 6. The structure of the Commission's TRS program reflects the fact that, historically, most people have used wireline or wireless telephone networks to communicate remotely by voice. Thus, North American Numbering Plan (NANP) telephone numbers are used to route calls between TRS users and the people they are calling, and the provision of TRS, to date, has typically been configured to fit within the typical structure of a traditional telephone call, with a “calling party” and “called party” and originating and terminating NANP numbers. This structure has continued to be used to frame the provision of TRS even after the development of internet-based forms of TRS. As a result, even though a VRS user's connection with a CA is established via an internet video link, the Commission has been able to rely on originating and terminating telephone numbers as part of the information required to verify the user's eligibility and the minutes of service for which TRS providers are compensated. 7. Video conferencing, however, is generally accessed through the internet, without necessarily involving any telephone numbers. While a consumer can obtain audio-only access to some video conferences by dialing a telephone number, full video access is usually achieved directly through the internet, without the use of originating or terminating telephone numbers. As a result, for a consumer to use VRS to participate in a video conference, a telephone number must be available for an audio-only connection to the video conference. The VRS consumer must establish a direct video connection to the conference—in the same way as other participants, but independently of the VRS provider—and establish a second, separate video connection to the VRS provider. The CA then establishes a separate, audio-only connection to the conference, using the dial-in number. The CA's only connection to the VRS user is via the second video connection. Thus, the CA cannot see the other video conference participants, and the VRS user can only view the CA over the second video connection, often on a separate screen. 8. To address concerns about the availability of TRS on video conferencing platforms, the Commission requested the Disability Advisory Committee (DAC) to study the matter. In its 2022 report, the DAC stated t ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 150k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━