lovesorenson

I am not sure about FCC that forces all VRS to operate 24 hours a day. I thought it did and gave all VRS 30 days to get busy. So I believe FCC announced this in June or July. Since then, only one VRS, Sorenson is open 24 hours a day, not others yet. Did FCC change its position or what ?

Deafness

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Mookie

http://www.sorensonvrs.com/fcc/index...ed582084815bde

Yes there is 24 hours service. Don't you understand in ASL streaming video?

Dennis

lovesorenson, the FCC's order was to have all VRS services start 24 hour service on January 1st, 2006.

lovesorenson

Oh you missed my point.

In my previous message, I said "only one VRS, Sorenson is open 24 hours a day, not others yet.".

Don't you understand English?

lovesorenson

Really, I swear that I saw a clause somewhere that states 30 days but you mentioned Jan 1st. That makes more sense so that the other VRS can prepare ahead of time.

Thank you, Dennis

qwerty123

starting jan 1, 2006, all vrs providers must be open 24 hours along with average speed of answer less than 3 minutes on 80% of VRS traffic. Will reduce to two minutes in July 2006 and down to one minute by end of 2006.

Dennis

Almost, not fully correct.

Jan 1, 2006: 80% of all calls in 180 seconds (3 minutes)

July 1, 2006: 80% of all calls in 150 seconds (2 1/2 minutes)

Jan 1, 2007: 80% of all calls in 120 seconds (2 minutes)

Source: http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_publi...C-259991A1.pdf

The requirements, even at best, will still only require "2 minutes, ON AVERAGE, for only ever 4 out of 5 calls into VRS" That means that all day, every day, one VRS provider can choose to answer 8 out of 10 calls, as long as they average up to the required 2 or 3 minutes, ALL day long. That means that when it's busy, too bad, and when it's not busy, they'll answer just quick enough to bring down their average.

That means that one person could get answered in 5 seconds, then the next person can be answered within 6 minutes. That's really not cool.

Two VRS providers have a separate requirement to answer 85% of their calls in 30 seconds. 30 SECONDS. Not MINUTES. They have to have that speed of answer for their WHOLE service, which means YOU benefit. Guess which two they are?

RickL66

I'm guessing the ones that don't get very many VRS calls anyway.

Dennis

Spoken like a true "that VRS provider" fanboy.

NightwarriorJin

Dennis, go ahead, list 2 of em, Im curious to see what you think

Dennis

Okay, fine.

How many of you know about the Federal Relay Service?

http://www.fts.gsa.gov/frs/

It's probably not familiar to all of you. That must mean it's a small, specialized service, right? Not quite.

On that page, it lists two people as contact persons. Look at their email addresses. See the @mail.sprint.com?

So, it's a SprintVRS service. SprintVRS partners with the CSDVRS service. Different name, same service. Same quick speed of answer, same great quality, same respect for the community and not stealing interpreters from where they're needed.

So, what, does that mean that only Federal Relay Service VRS calls need to be answered fast? Nope. The FCC made the rule in March that they're not allowed to "put someone at the front of the queue" for ANY relay call. No VIPs. No excuse to answer anyone else's calls first, if someone else was in line.

SprintVRS and CSDVRS is everywhere. They continue to tout "quick connection." I've seen it proven again and again.

diehardbiker

I wouldn't lose my sleep over this!

From my experience, there is ALWAYS room for improvement. Believe me, VRS is here to stay, and will grow and improve over time. Nothing changes for perfect 100%, practically overnight!

Here is the real proof!

Back in 1979, NCI was first to broadcast TV with closed captioned. The requirement was a device from Sears that you could hook up on top of TV. That time, only few hours a week were captioned. Now, those deafies who were born in 1985 were DAMN luckier than me! They enjoyed SO much on TV than I did during 90's and now almost all shows have CC, including movies on DVD and old fashioned VCR!

Local operated relay service were started sometime in 1983, and they were limited to 10 minutes each call (Coughing, coughing what a joke!), and the caller is to pay for both calls made! I mean double charges for caller because Relay service can't afford pay for both sides. Their hours were 9am to 5pm. 10 years later, Relay service is heard everywhere and operated at 24 hours and the billing became more simplified, and eventually became free. TTY though 911 became possible.

I believe that communication between deafies and hearies will ALWAYS evolve for better over time! I have never seen anything that goes from good to REAL BAD!

deafclimber

off topic: i wonder what happened to this after this article was printed.

http://www.c-s-d.org/default.aspx?tabid=161

beside that, as ex-sorensonvrs subscriber, i m quitely happy with CSD/Sprint.

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lovesorenson

I am surprised to see this website that says First 24 hour Open VRS.
I had never knew this but why cut down the hours.
Right now see below.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Operating Hours & Access Numbers

VRS Operating Hours
Monday through Friday - 6:00 AM - 12:00 AM CT
Weekend & Holiday - 7:00 AM to 11:00 PM CT
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
This was for the webcam users. The VP users can not use this website.

So it must be seperate.

I know all VRS for VP users will have to be open 24 hours as required
by FCC so no need to worry.

Dennis

Specifically, what happened was that the FCC didn't agree that it HAD to be offered as a 24 hour service. Sprint was the very first company that agreed it was important and went ahead and did it without the FCC requiring it.

A few months later, the FCC decided to cut the rate for VRS by more than half. That meant that the level of service that all VRS providers could give was SLASHED. Budgets had to be cut, so Sprint (at that time USAVRS) was forced to stop providing 24 hour service.

Mookie

Know why? You never dare to test any VRS...
Oh, that's right. Your Sorenson VP can not connect to any VRS execpt Sorenson.....

lovesorenson

Oh you are right about Sorenson VP but it is more deaf friendly than Dlink VP. Still Sorenson tops all and once more there will be more new features coming. Dlink VP may be always the same and maybe will be discontinued. I said "maybe" because there is no improvement on Dlink VP since DAY ONE.

Dennis

I bet there have been many improvements on the i2eye DVC-1000 since "Day 1." The device is used and bought by hearing people and they expect improvements, and they have gotten them. Many of those improvements have benefitted deaf users.

Mookie

No thanks. I am not favoring for the Monoploy business. You may want to purchase Ford vehicle instead of any automobile manufacturers' automobiles.

lovesorenson

Really... What are the improvements since Day 1 ? Since Nov, 2004, I have both VPs from Dlink (Sprint) and Sorenson. I got two upgrades on Sorenson, none on Dlink. Let me check tonite to see what version on both and will be back to you tomorrow. I know Sorenson VP will show the version number and not sure about Dlink as I have not used a while. I hope you will be able to tell us what version is yours. So we can compare our versions. Ok, Dennis...

qwerty123

Not if you block the outgoing port 389. This will basically disable the videophone functions and use IP to reach other vrs providers.

Nightwarrior mentioned that in his other post.