Don's Blog

See? There’s some home to humanity after all! If Purple and FCC can get along, so can we all!

FCC and Purple reached an agreement and made peace. Purple has issued a press release. Purple has survived the previous crisis, and will continue to serve customers!

For those of you, who’re like me and have short attention spans, like usual, here’s the summary, followed by the press release for you guys to glaze over.

While Purple and FCC has reached an agreement, I’d like to remind you all—this is only an INTERIM AGREEMENT (meaning they reached an agreement about the basic ideas, but are still debating about the details).

Now for the summary I promised you. Hopefully, your eyes haven’t glazed over yet.

• Purple has agreed to not challenge FCC’s recent declaratory ruling
• Accept a debt to FCC to the tune of as much as 20 million dollars.
• They expect to reach a full agreement about the rest of details within 6 months.
• This full agreement in 6 months will also include a plan for paying back FCC.
• FCC has released funds owed to Purple from past due reimbursement
• As a result, Purple has terminated their litigation against FCC

That’s all of it. The first one about Purple agreeing to not fight FCC’s recent declaratory ruling is a big ouch, since several companies and organizations are up in arms about it. I was going to email our PR department to find out what Purple had to say about their agreeing to this condition, but saw Purple’s CEO Dan Luis had already addressed it in the press release:

“Although we believed that the new Declaratory Ruling included new definitions and guidelines around compensability of TRS services, particularly regarding use of VRS services by Deaf and Hard of Hearing employees, it was our determination that it was in our best interest that we agree not to challenge the Declaratory Ruling so we could keep our operations and services intact for our customers,”

In other words, due to Purple’s fiscal crisis and need for past due funds owed by FCC, Purple needed to agree to this condition, as doing so meant Purple’s survival as a company.

Personally, this is very good news for me, and the rest of other employees, as it means we get to keep our jobs, and it also is a very good news for customers, as they get to continue using our services!

UPDATE: FCC has also issued an announcement with their own perspective of the agreement. That announcement from the FCC is also included below. I won’t be summarizing that one since they’re pretty much saying the same thing what Purple said.

As promised, here’s the press release from Purple [source (3/9/10)]:

PURPLE COMMUNICATIONS AND FCC REACH INTERIM AGREEMENT

Framework for Global Settlement Achieved – Funds Released

Rocklin, California – March 9, 2010 — Purple Communications™, Inc. (OTC: PRPL) (“Purple”), a leading provider of text and video relay and on-site interpreting services for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing announced that it has reached an interim agreement with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regarding payment demands made by the FCC in connection with the FCC’s February 25, 2010 Declaratory Ruling.

The Declaratory Ruling sets forth guidelines for interpreting and applying the FCC’s rules and regulations regarding text and video relay services. The Declaratory Ruling excludes certain types of video relay calls from compensation by the TRS Fund, both prospectively and retroactively. In anticipation of, and contemporaneous with, the Declaratory Ruling, the FCC made immediate payment demands on Purple for reimbursement to the TRS Fund and notified Purple that it would withhold reimbursements to Purple from the TRS Fund. With its current and future revenue stream suspended, Purple appealed the Declaratory Ruling to both the FCC and to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Purple’s appeal to the DC Circuit sought an immediate stay of the Declaratory Ruling.

Purple now has reached an interim agreement with the FCC that will enable Purple to continue operating while it continues to work with the FCC to negotiate a broader global settlement. In reaching this interim agreement, Purple agreed to accept and not challenge the Declaratory Ruling and, to assume a debt to the TRS Fund in an amount as much as $20 million. The broader global settlement is expected within 180-days which will include, among other things, a structured repayment plan. Upon execution of the interim agreement, the FCC released funds owing to Purple and Purple withdrew its litigation against the FCC.

“Although we believed that the new Declaratory Ruling included new definitions and guidelines around compensability of TRS services, particularly regarding use of VRS services by Deaf and Hard of Hearing employees, it was our determination that it was in our best interest that we agree not to challenge the Declaratory Ruling so we could keep our operations and services intact for our customers,” said Dan Luis, CEO of Purple. “We at the company were inspired by the support we received and have every intention of continuing to fulfill our mission of serving the deaf community by providing high-quality and innovative services, while working with consumers, other providers, and the FCC to shape the dialogue of our industry.”

“I would like to thank our loyal employees, contractors, and customers for their tremendous outpouring of support for Purple over this last week,” added Ronald E. Obray, Purple’s vice chairman. “The support shown for Purple this last week demonstrates the important role smaller providers like Purple play in ensuring that a competitive environment exists for consumers. Every phone call a consumer makes is like a vote; and when they choose a smaller provider for their phone call, they are voting for choice and competition instead of a market controlled by a single provider.”

About Purple

Purple Communications is a leading provider of onsite interpreting services, video relay and text relay services, and video remote interpreting, offering a wide array of options designed to meet the varied communication needs of its customers. The Company’s vision is to enable free-flowing communication between people, inclusive of differences in abilities, languages, or locations. For more information on the Company or its services, visit www.purple.us, by Internet relay by visiting www.ip-relay.com, or by video phone by connecting to purple.tv.

“i711,” “Purple,” and the Purple logo are registered trademarks of Purple Communications, Inc. “Purple Mail,” “Powered by Purple,” “i711.com,” “My IP-Relay,” “IP-Relay.com,” “One-Tap Redial,” and “P3″ are either registered trademarks, trademarks, or service marks of Purple Communications, Inc. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

—————————-

And now the announcement from the FCC [source (PDF)] :

NEWS

Federal Communications Commission News Media Information 202 / 418-0500445 12th Street, S.W. Internet: http://www.fcc.gov
TTY: 1-888-835-5322

Washington, D. C. 20554

This is an unofficial announcement of Commission action. Release of the full text of a Commission order constitutes official action.
See MCI v. FCC. 515 F 2d 385 (D.C. Circ 1974).

For Immediate Release: News Media Contact:
March 9, 2010 Rosemary Kimball at (202) 418-0511

e-mail: rosemary.kimball@fcc.gov

PURPLE COMMUNICATIONS ACKNOWLEDGES DEBT,
BEGINS PAYBACK TO TELECOMMUNICATIONS RELAY FUND

Washington, DC — Purple Communications, a provider of telecommunications relay
services, has signed an agreement with the FCC that puts in place the framework for repayment
of funds that were inappropriately paid to the company. Under this agreement, Purple
“acknowledges that the FCC [has stated that Purple has] a debt amounting to $18,459,064, and
has determined not to challenge the FCC’s position.” Under the agreement, the funds will be
repaid to the National Exchange Carriers Association (NECA), which administers the
government fund that pays for relay services for deaf and hard-of-hearing consumers. In return
for this commitment, the FCC will instruct NECA to release payment to Purple for relay services
provided in the month of December 2009, and will continue to reimburse for legitimate relay
services provided by Purple month by month.

“We’re pleased that Purple has acknowledged its debt to the government and agreed to
repay it,” said Joel Gurin, Chief of the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau of the FCC.
“Because this agreement enables Purple to continue doing business, it will also benefit Purple’s
customers and employees. We look forward to Purple’s fulfillment of this agreement in the
months ahead.”

This action follows a Declaratory Ruling, issued by the Consumer and Governmental
Affairs Bureau of the FCC on February 25, that reaffirms the FCC’s rules regarding which calls
can be compensated from the government relay fund. Relay services allow people with hearing
disabilities to communicate with hearing people. In video relay service (VRS), this is done
through an interpreter who can translate speech into American Sign Language and vice versa.

The Declaratory Ruling restates that government funds can only be used to pay for relay
service for calls that involve at least one party in the United States. In addition, the Ruling
restates that relay service for any calls made to or from the employees of a VRS provider – for
example, for marketing or other business purposes – cannot be paid for at the minute-by-minute
rate used to calculate payments for relay services provided to consumers. The costs of these
business calls can, however, be submitted by VRS companies as part of the overhead that is used
to calculate how the government will reimburse them.

The FCC calculated that Purple had been inappropriately paid by NECA for $18.4
million in calls that either began and ended outside the U.S., or that were made to or from Purple
employees. Purple has agreed to work with the FCC on a plan to repay this amount over time,
and will have 180 days to develop a repayment plan with the FCC. Purple has also agreed to
make an initial payment after it receives its December payment from NECA. While this
agreement addresses Purple’s debt obligation to the government, it does not affect any possible
government investigations into Purple’s business practices.

- FCC-

This is via ReadWriteWeb.

Starting today, Google will begin to offer auto-captioning for all English-language videos on YouTube. I just went there, and found a few videos that were captioned. It isn’t perfect, but I was able to follow the videos without too much difficulty. Not bad for a live on-the-go automated captioning!

This is from Google:

• While we plan to broaden the feature to include more languages in the months to come, currently, auto-captioning is only for videos where English is spoken.
• Just like any speech recognition application, auto-captions require a clearly spoken audio track. Videos with background noise or a muffled voice can’t be auto-captioned. President Obama’s speech on the recent Chilean Earthquake is a good example of the kind of audio that works for auto-captions.
• Auto-captions aren’t perfect and just like any other transcription, the owner of the video needs to check to make sure they’re accurate. In other cases, the audio file may not be good enough to generate auto-captions. But please be patient — our speech recognition technology gets better every day.
• Auto-captions should be available to everyone who’s interested in using them. We’re also working to provide auto-captions for all past user uploads that fit the above mentioned requirements. If you’re having trouble enabling them for your video, please visit our Help Center: this article is for uploaders and this article is for viewers.

PurpleVRS has issued a press release on the current ongoing situation with FCC, which includes how it will affect PurpleVRS.

The article can be accessed directly at: http://purple.us/news/

The article is quite long, so I’ll summarize it up for those who’re in a hurry, or have short attention spans.

Basically, PurpleVRS has formally asked FCC to reconsider its demands from the VRS industry, and also pay PurpleVRS back what is owed (not including calls that were not covered as per the recent FCC Declaratory ruling). For the last few months, FCC has withheld funds from PurpleVRS, and if this continues, PurpleVRS will be forced to declare bankruptcy, and/or face liquidation (termination of all employees, all property being sold off in order to pay any debts). There’re currently over 1,000 employees with PurpleVRS that would lose their jobs if this were to occur, including myself.

The burning question here is: what is the FCC’s response to our request? To be bluntly honest with you, I have no idea. They have not yet issued a response.

Some of you have asked me what I’d do if PurpleVRS were to shut down. I’d do what anybody in my situation would do: look for another job. I do have bills, rent, etc that needs to be paid.  I have not looked for another job as of yet, because I have full faith in our government, and in our executives. I’m pretty confident they will succeed.

Some of you have called PurpleVRS tech support asking whether PurpleVRS has shut down, or is in bankruptcy- many of you have said you heard it from my blog. I had no idea I had that many readers! But I would like to answer those questions here.

Is PurpleVRS shutting down?

No, we’re currently not shutting down.

Is PurpleVRS bankrupt?

No, we’re currently not in bankruptcy. All employees are being paid. We’ve had to make some adjustments in certain financial areas, but we’re confident that will not affect any PurpleVRS services considerably.

So PurpleVRS services are still active?

Yes, all company operations and services are continuing normally.

If PurpleVRS shuts down, will that include IP-Relay, i711, PurpleVRS, and all other services it has?

Yes, all of those services would be shut down—UNLESS—we were able to get other VRS providers to absorb those services. But that’s assuming that PurpleVRS DOES shut down. And let me tell you one very important fact:

We have not shut down yet, we plan to keep fighting. We’re survivors, we will succeed. Have faith in us, we’ve served you loyally, all we ask from you is for your continued support.

That being said, here’s the press release from PurpleVRS. Warning, long read!

IMPORTANT INFORMATION ON FCC RULING

FCC ISSUES IMPORTANT NEW RULING ON VRS WITH RETROACTIVE IMPACT,
ISSUES RELATED DEMAND LETTERS AND WITHHOLDING PAYMENTS

Purple Files Emergency Stay Request and Evaluates Options Based on Risk of Insolvency

Rocklin, California – March 3, 2010 — Purple Communications™, Inc. (OTC: PRPL), a leading provider of text and video relay and on-site interpreting services for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing has filed an Emergency Stay Request and Application for Review with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in order to grant the company due process regarding the FCC’s withholding of funds owed to Purple.

Background
On February 25, 2010, the FCC issued a Declaratory Ruling addressing certain types of calls that are not compensable under the Telecommunications Relay Services (TRS) program administered by the FCC. The Declaratory Ruling applies to all providers and is purported to clarify prior rules the FCC believes have been clear, thereby making its applicability retroactive.

Although Purple agrees with the objectives of the FCC; 1) to ensure the integrity of the TRS Fund; 2) to eliminate potential “double dipping” opportunities for providers who employ the deaf and who also use their services in the performance of their work-related obligations; and 3) the need for clarification of the types of calls that are compensable from the TRS Fund, Purple does not concur with the recent actions that the FCC has taken in the name of achieving those objectives.

Purple, deaf consumer organizations, and other providers have long been on record requesting that the FCC provide clarifications as to the permissibility of calls which are reimbursable under the TRS program. As recently as August 2009, Purple and eight national consumer organizations asked the FCC to open a rulemaking process that would be transparent and allow for public discussion on which types of calls should be permissible for reimbursement under the TRS program. In September 2009, the Commission issued an Order singling out calls between two or more deaf individuals as being non-compensable from the TRS Fund. Although the February 25, 2010 Declaratory Ruling is purported to provide clarification of prior rules the Commission felt were in force, it is unclear why the FCC failed to take the opportunity in the September 2009 Order or earlier in order to clarify rules in the face of repeated requests by the industry participants. Purple believes that many of the newly issued clarifications are really new definitions of rules that were not commonly understood among the industry. Also not addressed in the September 2009 Order was the contemplation of various options for reimbursing providers for reasonable expenses incurred in connection with the processing of calls made by deaf employees or contractors of relay providers, another issue on which many, including Purple, have offered alternative cost recovery approaches. In addition to issuing rules without a formal rule-making process involving consumer and industry group participation, the new rules are mandated as retroactive in effect for all industry providers.

Reason for the Emergency Stay and Appeal Request
In addition to the ruling, the FCC has issued Purple a demand letter requesting reimbursement for call types that were processed in 2008 and 2009 for which are now defined under the February 25, 2010 Declaratory Ruling as non-compensable. The FCC also notified Purple of its intention to withhold all compensation to the company, regardless of whether the compensation is related to permissible calls or not, until a resolution is reached regarding monies the FCC believes are owed back to the TRS Fund. These extreme actions by the FCC will result in a cessation of all operations if resolution cannot quickly be achieved.

Immediate Impact on Purple and its Deaf and Hard of Hearing Customers
As part of its cooperation with the FCC, Purple believed it was on a track of negotiating a global settlement agreement related to all historical inquiries; however, absent an immediate release of funds, Purple will soon be insolvent, forcing either a bankruptcy proceeding or liquidation of Purple. A liquidation of Purple would result in a loss of more than 1,000 jobs, a significant percentage of which are held by deaf or hard of hearing employees and the termination of all relay- and on-site interpreting services provided to the deaf community. This action could result in serious public safety issues in the event the traffic handled by Purple is unable to be readily absorbed in the market by remaining providers, particularly text relay services where Purple is the largest provider, or its interpreting services, which are provided to hospitals and other urgent care and medical operations.

Through its Emergency Stay Request and Appeal, Purple is seeking an immediate release of funds, which match the description of compensable calls under the new Declaratory Ruling that would allow a proper settlement to be negotiated in due course and would afford the company the natural due process it is entitled to.

“The retroactive impact of the ruling and related financial clawbacks could be financially devastating for the industry, particularly smaller providers who employ the deaf. Too, this could further exacerbate a market structure problem with a single provider having complete domination over the market,” said Dan Luis, Purple’s CEO.

“Purple is proud to be an employer of hundreds of deaf and hard of hearing employees and community outreach representatives. The cost to provide the same level of telecommunications access to a deaf employee as to a hearing employee is significantly higher. As long as providers are allowed to recover the full costs to provide this access, we can make this element of the Declaratory Ruling work; however, we also believe that this ruling could be a civil rights setback as it places a discriminatory burden on deaf and hard of hearing employees of TRS providers, which could lead to the loss of jobs and reduced employment opportunities among the deaf in a field that serves their community,” added Ronald E. Obray, Purple’s vice chairman.

“Ultimately, deaf and hard of hearing consumers could become the victims due to this ruling. This decision could potentially annihilate any small-VRS provider that employs the deaf, which would prevent a choice in providers and the incentive to innovate. A VRS provider should not have to make a business decision to not hire deaf or hard of hearing employees, as the cost for their rights of functional equivalency is too high,” said Kelby Brick, Purple’s Vice President of Regulatory and Strategic Policy.

About Purple
Purple Communications is a leading provider of onsite interpreting services, video relay and text relay services, and video remote interpreting, offering a wide array of options designed to meet the varied communication needs of its customers. Purple’s vision is to enable free-flowing communication between people, inclusive of differences in abilities, languages, or locations. For more information on Purple or its services, visit www.purple.us, by Internet relay by visiting www.ip-relay.com, or by video phone by connecting to purple.tv.

“i711,” “Purple,” and the Purple logo are registered trademarks of Purple Communications, Inc. “Purple Mail,” “Powered by Purple,” “i711.com,” “My IP-Relay,” “IP-Relay.com,” “One-Tap Redial,” and “P3″ are either registered trademarks, trademarks, or service marks of Purple Communications, Inc. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

The FCC has released a vlog on the recent VRS ruling, and I thought I’d share it with you all.

In the Matter of Structure and Practices of the Video Relay Service Program.
The FCC Reaffirms Rules and Policies of Video Relay Service. CG Docket No. 10-51

News Release:
Word |PDF

Declaratory Ruling:
Word | PDF

The above content can be directly accessed here:
http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/dro/vrs_policies.html

Before I go any further, I’d like to reiterate a very important point that I failed to mention in my other two posts, a point that is already clearly positioned to the right of this web page. While I may work for Purple VRS, all of my posts, comments, and so on are of my own personal opinion. So everything on this blog, unless otherwise explicitly indicated, is unofficial content. Now, that point being made, let’s move on with the post.

Seems Kelby Brick made a vlog on the ruling last Thursday. I’m sure some of you already saw the vlog, but I’m also pretty sure many haven’t, and I thought it was a good vlog to read.

It also has come to my attention that a former employee of Purple VRS has also made a vlog about the current situation with the FCC ruling, and on how it affects Purple VRS. The former employee’s name is Damon Stump.  He also used to work in customer care, and ironically enough, I happen to be working from the same cubicle he used to work in. While I do not agree with several of the points he makes, he certainly raises a few good though-provoking points. It has always been my personal policy to hear both sides, even if I’ve already picked a side. Here it is without further ado:

Some have asked me why I haven’t made a vlog myself about this current situation yet. I have three reason why I haven’t. One of my reasons is actually funny.

First reason: I prefer to write, because what I want to say is right there in black and white. It means what it means. There is no confusion on what was meant. Second reason is because I’m quite aware that I can sometimes be long-winded, or will talk about issues that the reader is already aware of. At this point, the reader is able to skim through what I wrote to something that interests the reader, without the fear that they missed something interesting. This is difficult to do with vlogs, as it’s too easy to skip too far ahead and miss something vitally important. My third, and last reason is: I’m not exactly photogenic (as in, the webcam doesn’t exactly make me look hot and sexy!). So I prefer to write.

As always, commentaries are welcome, and will endeavor to respond.