The FCC today announced settlements totaling $1.4 million with three providers of Internet protocol captioned telephone service (IP CTS) to close the agency’s investigations of the companies’ delivery of IP CTS calls to 911 public safety answering points (PSAPs).

Hamilton Relay, InnoCaption, and Sprint Corp. had been unable to relay the calls for periods of as much as 10 months, the FCC said, and were not even aware of the problem until the Commission’s routine test calls revealed it.

“As part of the settlement, the companies have admitted that their actions violated Commission rules and have agreed to adopt robust compliance plans,” as well as “robust risk management processes,” the FCC said.

Sprint will pay $1.175 million, Hamilton Relay will pay $235,000, and InnoCaption will pay $25,000 under the consent decrees adopted in the proceedings.

The companies also agreed to waive all rights to reimbursement from the Telecommunications Relay Service (TRS) Fund for IP CTS calls during the periods in which they could not deliver IP CTS calls to 911 PSAPs.

The FCC’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau had suspended InnoCaption’s conditional certification to provide Internet protocol captioned telephone service (IP CTS) earlier this year as a result of the 911 problems (TRDaily, April 8). —Lynn Stanton, lynn.stanton@wolterskluwer.com

Courtesy TRDaily