On October 8, 2021, the FCC released an Order granting a petition of the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) for partial waiver of the user registration requirements for two types of telecommunications relay service (TRS): Internet Protocol Relay Service (IP Relay) and Internet Protocol Captioned Telephone Service (IP CTS).
This conditional waiver facilitates GSA’s transitioning federal workers to use of TRS in place of most Federal Relay services and applies only to federal government employees and on-premises contractors. As a condition of these waivers, the FCC requires providers of IP Relay and IP CTS to federal workers to follow a registration process similar to the “enterprise” registration process currently applicable to the Video Relay Service (VRS).
Links to Order Granting GSA Petition for Waiver:
URL: https://www.fcc.gov/document/partial-waiver-ip-cts-and-ip-relay-registration-rules
Word: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-21-1262A1.docx
PDF: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-21-1262A1.pdf
Text: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-21-1262A1.txt
Link to GSA Petition for Waiver:
https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/1031150110993/FCC%20Waiver%20Request_March%202021_signed.pdf
General information about TRS is available at https://www.fcc.gov/trs; for IP CTS at https://www.fcc.gov/ipcts; and for IP Relay at https://www.fcc.gov/ip-relay. For further information, please contact William Wallace, Disability Rights Office, Consumer and Governmental Bureau, at 202-418-2716, or William.Wallace@fcc.gov. Individuals who use videophones and are fluent in American Sign Language (ASL) may call the FCC’s ASL Consumer Support Line at (844) 432-2275 (videophone).