Analog Telecommunications Relay Service Modernization

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION <CFR>47 CFR Part 64</CFR> <DEPDOC>[CG Docket Nos. 03-123, 08-15; FCC 25-79; FR ID 324556]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Analog Telecommunications Relay Service Modernization</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Communications Commission. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In this document, the Federal Communications Commission (Commission) proposes to modernize its telecommunications relay services (TRS) rules and seeks comment on phasing out the mandatory status of traditional TTY-based relay services (TTY Relay) under state TRS programs; recognizing additional forms of internet-based TRS, such as internet Protocol Speech-to-Speech (IP STS) and real-time text (RTT)-based relay as compensable forms of TRS; establishing a temporary, national certification process for analog relay providers and user registration and verification requirements; and updating or eliminating obsolete rules to all forms of TRS. Through these proposals, the Commission aims to align TRS with today's communications landscape, better serve the needs of relay users, ensure the continued availability of TRS through the transition from legacy communications network, to modern, IP-based networks, and continue to protect the integrity of the TRS program through the prevention of waste, fraud, and abuse. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments are due on or before February 2, 2026. Reply comments are due on or before March 3, 2026. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Pursuant to §§ 1.415 and 1.419 of the Commission's rules, 47 CFR 1.415, 1.419, interested parties may file comments and reply comments. Comments may be filed using ECFS. You may submit comments, identified by CG Docket No. 03-123, by the following method: • <E T="03">Electronic Filers.</E> Comments may be filed electronically using the internet by accessing the ECFS: <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs.</E> • <E T="03">Paper Filers.</E> Parties who choose to file by paper must file an original and one copy of each filing. • Filings can be sent by hand or messenger delivery, by commercial courier, or by the U.S. Postal Service. All filings must be addressed to the Secretary, Federal Communications Commission. • Hand-delivered or messenger-delivered paper filings for the Commission's Secretary are accepted between 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. by the FCC's mailing contractor at 9050 Junction Drive, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701. All hand deliveries must be held together with rubber bands or fasteners. Any envelopes and boxes must be disposed of before entering the building. • Commercial courier deliveries (any deliveries not by the U.S. Postal Service) must be sent to 9050 Junction Drive, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701. Filings sent by U.S. Postal Service First-Class Mail, Priority Mail, and Priority Mail Express must be sent to 45 L Street NE, Washington, DC 20554. • <E T="03">People with Disabilities.</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. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Joshua Mendelsohn, Disability Rights Office, Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, at 202-559-7304, or <E T="03">Joshua.Mendelsohn@fcc.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> This is a summary of the Commission's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking ( <E T="03">NPRM</E> ), in CG Docket Nos. 03-123 and 08-15, FCC 25-79, adopted on November 20, 2025, and released on November 21, 2025,. The full text of this document can be accessed electronically via the Commission's Electronic Document Manage System website at <E T="03">https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-25-79A1.pdf,</E> or via the Commission's Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS) website at <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs.</E> <E T="03">Ex Parte Rules.</E> This proceeding shall be treated as a permit-but-disclose proceeding in accordance with the Commission's <E T="03">ex parte</E> rules. 47 CFR 1.1200 <E T="03">et seq.</E> Persons making <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentations must file a copy of any written presentation or a memorandum summarizing any oral presentation within two business days after the presentation (unless a different deadline applicable to the Sunshine period applies). Persons making oral <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentations are reminded that memoranda summarizing the presentation must (1) list all persons attending or otherwise participating in the meeting at which the <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentation was made, and (2) summarize all data presented and arguments made during the presentation. If the presentation consisted in whole or in part of the presentation of data or arguments already reflected in the presenter's written comments, memoranda, or other filings in the proceeding, the presenter may provide citations to such data or arguments in his or her prior comments, memoranda, or other filings (specifying the relevant page and/or paragraph numbers where such data or arguments can be found) in lieu of summarizing them in the memorandum. Documents shown or given to Commission staff during <E T="03">ex parte</E> meetings are deemed to be written <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentations and must be filed consistent with § 1.1206(b) of the Commission's rules. In proceedings governed by § 1.49(f) of the Commission's rules or for which the Commission has made available a method of electronic filing, written <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentations and memoranda summarizing oral <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentations, and all attachments thereto, must be filed through the electronic comment filing system available for that proceeding, and must be filed in their native format ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> .doc, .xml, .ppt, searchable .pdf). Participants in this proceeding should familiarize themselves with the Commission's <E T="03">ex parte</E> rules. <E T="03">Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act.</E> The Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act, Public Law 118-9, requires each agency, in providing notice of a rulemaking, to post online a brief plain-language summary of the proposed rule. The required summary of the <E T="03">Notice</E> is available at <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/proposed-rulemakings.</E> <E T="03">Paperwork Reduction Act.</E> The <E T="03">NPRM</E> may contain proposed new or modified information collection requirements. The Commission, as part of its continuing effort to reduce paperwork burdens, invites the general public and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to comment on the information collection requirements contained in the <E T="03">NPRM,</E> as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, Public Law 104-13. In addition, pursuant to the Small Business Paperwork Relief Act of 2002, Public Law 107-198, <E T="03">see</E> 44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(4), the Commission seeks specific comment on how it might further reduce the information collection burden for small business concerns with fewer than 25 employees. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Synopsis</HD> 1. Title IV of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), which added section 225 to the Communications Act of 1934, as amended (the Act), directs the Commission to ensure that TRS are available, to the extent possible and in the most efficient manner, to individuals with hearing or speech disabilities in the United States. 2. The Act requires common carriers provide TRS throughout the areas in which they offer service. The Act directs the Commission to adopt, administer, and enforce regulations governing the provision of interstate and intrastate TRS. Section 225 of the Act also authorizes, but does not require, states to establish their own TRS programs, subject to Commission approval and certification. In states with certified TRS programs, carriers may fulfill their obligation to provide intrastate TRS by participating in the state program. If a state does not have a Commission-certified TRS program, the provision of intrastate TRS in that state falls under the direct supervision of the Commission. All 50 states, the District of Columbia, and several U.S. territories have FCC-approved TRS programs. The analog TRS providers provide the relay services for intrastate, interstate, and international calls. They seek reimbursement for intrastate analog TRS calls from the relevant state program and seek reimbursement for interstate and international calls from the Interstate TRS Fund. Currently, the Commission recognizes six forms of TRS, three analog services and three internet-based services. The three analog forms of TRS are TTY Relay, Speech-to-Speech relay service (STS), and Captioned Telephone Service (CTS). 3. Section 225 of the Act provides that, generally, costs attributed to interstate TRS are to be recovered from all subscribers for every interstate service, while costs for intrastate TRS are recovered from the intrastate jurisdiction. Each state is responsible for determining how to fund the provision of intrastate TRS through the state's TRS program. The interstate costs of analog TRS are recovered through the FCC-administered TRS Fund, and the Commission is responsible for determining how providers of interstate TRS shall be compensated. Since 2007, compensation rates for interstate calls using analog services have been determined by applying the Multi-State Average Rate Structure (MARS) methodology, which does not require a calculation of costs or demand for these specific services. 4. As communications technologies continue to evolve, the TRS landscape is undergoing significant transformations, necessitating a ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 84k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━