In the matter of: )

)

CONSUMER/DISABILITY )

TELECOMMUNICATIONS ADVISORY )

MEETING )

VOLUME: 1

PAGES: 1 through 271

PLACE: Washington, D.C.

DATE: March 15, 2002

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20554

In the matter of: )

)

CONSUMER/DISABILITY )

TELECOMMUNICATIONS ADVISORY )

COMMITTEE )

Federal Communications

Commission

445 12th, Street, S.W.

Washington, D.C.

Friday,

March 15, 2002

The parties met, pursuant to notice, at

9:10 a.m.

BEFORE: SHIRLEY ROOKER,

Chair

[SPEAKERS]{.underline}:

MICHAEL POWELL, Chairman

JEFFREY CARLISLE, FCC

PAMELA GREGORY, FCC

NARDA JONES, FCC

MARSHA J. MacBRIDE, FCC

BLAISE SCINTO, FCC

BOB SEGALMAN, California Department of

Rehabilitation, Sacramento, California

JENIFER SIMPSON, President\'s Committee on

Employment of Peoples with Disabilities

K. DANE SNOWDEN, FCC

THOMAS WYATT, FCC

[ATTENDEES]{.underline}:

RAYNA AYLWARD

Mitsubishi Electric America Foundation

APPEARANCES: (Continued)

[ATTENDEES]{.underline}:

LEE BATEMAN (via teleconference)

Hewlett-Packard Company

BRENDA BATTAT

Self Help for Hard of Hearing People

CLAY BOWEN

National Association for Relay Administration

ANDREA BRUNS

National Cable Television Association

JULIE CARROLL

Information Technology Technical Assistance

and Training Center

ROBERT CHROSTOWSKI

Telecommunications Industry Association

KATE DEAN

Telecommunications Research & Action Center

MICHAEL DelCASINO

AT&T

RICHARD ELLIS

Verizon Communications

LARRY GOLDBERG

WGBN National Center for Accessible Media

JUDITH HARKINS

Gallaudet University

STEVE JACOBS

IDEAL at NCR

VERNON JAMES

San Carlos Apache Tribe

MATT KALTENBACH

Ericsson Inc.

KAREN FULLUM KIRSCH

National Association of Broadcasters

APPEARANCES: (Continued)

[ATTENDEES]{.underline}:

JEFFREY KRAMER

AARP

NANCI LINKE-ELLIS

TRIPOD Captioned Films

MILTON LITTLE, JR.

The National Urban League

MARIE LONG

Rainbow/PUSH Coalition and Citizenship

Education Fund

PAUL LUDWICK

Sprint Corporation

SCOTT MARSHALL

Federal Communication Commission

KEN McELDOWNEY

Consumer Action

BELINDA NELSON

Gila River Telecommunications, Inc.

SHELLEY NIXON

KATHLEEN O\'REILLY, Esquire

SUSAN PALMER

Cingular Wireless LLC

DAVID POEHLMAN

America Council of the Blind

REFUGIO ROCHIN

The Smithsonian Institute

SHIRLEY ROOKER

Call for Action

LAURA RUBY

Microsoft Corporation

APPEARANCES: (Continued)

[Attendees]{.underline}:

PAUL SCHROEDER

Alliance for Public Technology

BOB SEGALMAN, Ph.D.

CLAUDE STOUT

Consumer Action Network

JIM TOBIAS

Inclusive Technologies

MICAELA TUCKER (via teleconference)

Nokia

ANDREA WILLIAMS

Cellular Telecommunications & Internet

Association

[P R O C E E D I N G S]{.underline}

(9:10 a.m.)

MS. ROOKER: I would like to thank you for joining us today. We have a
packed agenda. It\'s important that we get started early.

We have two people joining us on a conference line today, Lee Bateman
from Hewlett-Packard and Micaela Tucker from Nokia. Welcome.

I would like to welcome some new members, Kate Dean from TRAC and Marie
Long from the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition. Roger Craft, believe it or not, is
snowed in. He\'s with the Communications Services for the Deaf, and he
is snowed in. It\'s hard to believe.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Andrea Williams for
pitch-hitting for me at the November meeting because I came down with a
fierce cold and you really did not want me here.

I would like to also remind you that we are being telecast, so don\'t do
anything to embarrass your mother, and don\'t wave at her.

I would also like to turn it over just for a few minutes to Scott for
some logistical information

MR. MARSHALL: Good morning, everyone.

Could we test the phone line? Do we have that working? Can we bring it
up for just a second, Jeff?

Do we have anybody on the phone line yet?

MS. TUCKER: Yes, this is Micaela Tucker.

MR. MARSHALL: Hi, Micaela. Good morning.

MS. TUCKER: Good morning.

MR. MARSHALL: Is Lee there?

MR. BATEMAN: This is Lee.

MR. MARSHALL: Oh, terrific. Okay, we will stop periodically to make sure
that you are able to participate in the meeting, and we are glad that
you are there.

Just a couple logistical issues. Right behind me and through the doors
to my left are the rest rooms, straight down and a left, and the men\'s
and the ladies\' rooms will be on your left.

Also, in the main corridor outside of the Commission meeting room you
will find pay telephones. And I wish you a good meeting.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you, Scott.

Before we start, I would like to recognize Barbara Douglas who is the
chief of staff for the Consumer Information Bureau. Barbara is joining
us this morning. Where are you, Barbara?

Hi, there. You are lucky, you are seeing the back of my head.

Serving on this committee has given me an opportunity to meet some very
interesting and dedicated people, and no one has been more supportive or
encouraging than Dane Snowden. You have seen the results of his concern
about our committee. He has written a letter to us expressing his
support and encouragement for us. He has met with me in a number of
conference calls and personal meeting. And I would like to thank him for
that.

Dane joined the Commission last year, in June, and he must be doing
something right because within a few days he is going to have increased
responsibility of policy-making and intergovernmental affairs.

So, Dane, we welcome you, thank you, and welcome to this morning\'s
meeting.

(Applause.)

MR. SNOWDEN: Thanks, Shirley. It was kind of odd, I wasn\'t expecting
that introduction. When you said you wanted to talk about something, it
was me, so I appreciate that. We missed you at the last meeting.

I want to say my personal welcome to all of you. We enjoy hosting this
meeting each year, and it\'s a pleasure, excuse me, each quarter, and
it\'s a pleasure to have you all come back with us every single quarter.

One of the things I wanted to remind everyone about is the microphones.
In each meeting I notice there is some confusion about how they work. As
soon as you begin talking, give it a second for it to pick up. So it
will catch all once you start talking, but know that that\'s how it
works.

As Shirley mentioned, there are some first time visitors here, and I
want to welcome all of them to joining us for the CDTAC meeting today.

And also, Shirley mentioned the letter that I sent. We are very eager to
give information back from you. The past couple of meetings that I have
sat in on, I noticed that you let us do most of the talking, and while
we enjoy doing a lot of talking, we also do enjoy doing a lot of
listening and getting recommendations from you on various issues.

I know the agenda for this particular meeting is very, very aggressive,
and we hope that what will come out of that is recommendations from this
body as to what the Commission should be doing and what actions we
should be taking.

So we are very eager to have your input on issues of concern, issues of
interest, or anything you think we should know, and that\'s vital to us
by having you all serve on this committee.

As Shirley mentioned, the agency has gone through a major reform, and my
bureau particularly is picking up new responsibilities, and we are very
excited about that. I\'m not sure if I am doing something right or if
the Chairman just wanted to make sure I had enough work to do. Either
way, we are picking up more policy role here at the Commission.

In your packet, you will see information that talks about the changes
that are going on within this particular bureau, and I have a before and
after slide for you so you can look at that at your leisure.

I want to say or pass on best wishes from Commissioner Martin,
Commissioner Avernau and Commissioner Cupps, who all cannot be with us
today, but I am happy to say that I have just see that he walked in, and
Chairman Powell is here, so I am going to cut my remarks short and turn
the podium over to our Chairman, Chairman Michael Powell.

(Applause.)

CHAIRMAN POWELL: Sometimes I feel like I am at a podium nonstop. I have
given people opening remarks. And so what I felt I would do,
particularly since this group meets consistently, but in frequently,
having this opportunity let me just say whatever Dane said about the
reform, I echo. It is an important transformation, and I think the
consumer element is going to get significantly more responsibility and
being more much more deeply integrated into policy-making generally, and
I think that\'s a very good thing.

And given that this is a critical advisory committee to his organization
in that effort, I think hopefully we will be in a more consistent way
able to integrate those views and concerns in the early stages of policy
development rather than treating these sets of issues as completely
separate and distinct in all our lobbying, and in some sense it\'s even
for attention. So I think that\'s a good thing.

But what I thought I would do is rather than give you lots of warm
remarks and thank you for your service, which I do, of course, I thought
I would let you have the opportunity to ask me any questions about the
direction of the Commission, things that are going on, concerns or
issues you have, maybe for the next 10 minutes before I have to go, so
that you get the most useful use of your time while I am here.

Does anybody have anything they want to start with? Yes, sir?

MR. TOBIAS: Hi. Your views on digital divide are well known.

CHAIRMAN POWELL: They are?

MR. TOBIAS: Well, they are often \--

CHAIRMAN POWELL: I never assume they are well known. They are well
written about, they are accurately done.

MR. TOBIAS: Well, then let me get down to the specifics.

With respect to people with disabilities, there is a large concern that
the issues faced by those consumers are not affordability issues
principally; they are issues of technical access and information about
the accessibility of those services.

How do you see, and I\'m not asking you to micro manage the Disability
Rights Office, how do you see digital divide issues playing out with
respect to accessibility?

CHAIRMAN POWELL: Well, that\'s a great question.

The extent to which those are \-- the most pointed one are technical
ones, it\'s important that through the Disability Rights Office and
groups like this you help us understand at the early stages what kinds
of technical problems and limitations they are.

Then we can make, once we have an appreciable understanding of that, we
can start to figure out where and what appropriate way do we at least at
a minimum raise those concerns with companies and industry segments.
Some places where we might have \-- you know, often we don\'t have that
much jurisdiction over technical issues. But to the extent that we do,
we can raise them in the context of that forum.

I think, as we have on occasion, for example, in the context of things
like the technical standards for navigation devices in cable, or to the
extent that there are issues about wireless handsets that fall into the
jurisdiction, to the extent that we are considering something like
E9-1-1 that might provide an opportunity to raise a policy question
about a disability concern, particularly with a technical foundation.

One of the things that is so valuable about a group like this and the
Disability Rights Office is those things will, let\'s be honest, be not
known or overlooked, not because of a lack of interest, but because of a
lack of understanding if those groups don\'t help surface what those
issues are, and mostly important, surface them at an early and
anticipatory stage before, you know, the things are built and we are
trying to go against the grain of decisions that have already taken
place, investments that have already taken place, or trains that have
already left the station.

But I know even in the five years that I have been here at times those
issues do get surfaced, and they do get plugged into the considerations
of standard setting when we have sufficient fair warning about them.

MS. ROOKER: Would you please identify yourself, please identify yourself
when you ask a question.

MR. GOLDBERG: I\'m Larry Goldberg from the National Center for
Accessible Media, WGBH in Boston.

I know you have a great deal of interest in new technologies and
emerging technologies, and the FCC has taken a wonderful leadership role
in assuring that the legacy technologies, good old television, is nicely
accessible.

Do you have thoughts or vision on how new technologies, for instance,
like broadband, can also be assured to be made accessible for people
with disabilities, particularly by close captioning?

CHAIRMAN POWELL: In my own view, you know, first of all, I would love to
see television not be perceived as just a technology of the past. I
mean, I think that if it is, shame on the government for giving free
spectrum or \$70 million to an industry to do nothing other than
replicate television as it was in its current form.

You know, my view is there really is a technological revolution, and
every industry got a little slice of the digital pie, and the one that
belongs to broadcasters is digital television. And you know, if you are
going to really realize the promise of the media, you know, something
creative and synergistic coming out of that that is really important
both, I think, to the future and health of that industry, but I also
think for consumer value.

I mean, if you are just giving me prettier pictures of the Brady Bunch,
I\'m not that interested. But if you find new, and your organization, by
the way, I think is leading the way. I mean, I think a lot of stations
as PBS have taken that challenge quite a bit more seriously than
commercial providers.

I am very excited about the internet as an empowering medium generally,
and I think particularly for the kind of concerns you raise for this
reason.

The IP protocol, the ability to essentially have a layered architecture
that provides for theoretically an infinitely amount of innovation in
software, I think suddenly starts to challenge the traditional
difficulties associated with \-- kind of tying back to the other
question \-- of always fighting about hardware.

Hardware is always a problem in some sense because it changes quickly,
product production cycles. Once investments are made there are some \--
nobody wants to do it again until the next product cycle. Products
aren\'t, sometimes aren\'t revised for three to five years.

Software, being a lot more malleable, applications being a lot more
malleable, it seems to me we have an opportunity to leverage the nature
of that infrastructure if it\'s sufficiently \-- you know, if it follows
the kind of traditional internet model, and use software-based
applications to empower devices in ways that were difficult when you had
really had to hard-wire a device\'s functionality.

So just like the computer becomes an entirely different thing when
networked, I think so do any number of devices running sufficient amount
of power and sufficient number of sophisticated \-- sufficient amount of
sophisticated software can potentially be used. And we have only seen, I
think we have only scratched the surface in that stuff.

You know, you look at Windows. There are sort of efforts. You will get
McIntosh operating systems, and I see you running them. You know, there
are beginning \-- you know, there have been some minimum experimentation
with having functionality built into the computer through the software
that aids in disability issues.

My children, interestingly enough, love on their McIntosh playing with
\-- it talking to them, which is built as a disability feature into the
Mac operating system. But they will turn it on and it will talk to them,
and they think that\'s kind of neat.

I think that that\'s just the beginning because we need to connect that
then to the greater world. I think it helps break up the insulation that
I sometimes hear echoed in the concerns of the \-- you know, our thing
works, but we are being isolated from the greater part of the
population.

And I think if you can network devices and take advantage of the power
of the software and then plug into the world, it could really be an
order of magnitude improvement in peoples\' lives. And it\'s the one
reasons, I think, this country really ought to dedicate itself to
getting those infrastructures out there and getting the services
available.

And you know, I am not talking about businesses. I\'m talking about
getting them available to real people at homes and houses, because I
think that then we can \-- then the race begins. Then the software
people, application providers can begin to assume you have things and
make things for you.

Yes, ma\'am.

MS. O\'REILLY: My name is Kathy O\'Reilly.

There is that frustration not only by persons with disabilities when
market forces are not providing technology that is accessible, but even
a broader frustration of technologies that are not being developed, and
that is a reminder that certainly in the last 30 or 40 years when market
forces have not been there to provide certain safety devices or certain
products the United States government, in its role is often the largest
consumer of certain products and services had been a very effective
stimulus to those.

Some of the safety standards in the seventies, truck standards, even the
old typewriter standards largely got in place when the federal
government, more often than not the defense department, said we are not
going to go out and buy something in the marketplace unless it meets a
certain standards, and that is what forced industry to develop it.

And I am wondering if you think that the United States government, as a
consumer, has a role to play in stimulating the entry into the market of
various products that market forces are not presenting. And if you think
that is appropriate, whether you have or would consider using your good
office to share that with OMB, GSA, justice department, looking at
antitrust restrictions as another way to ensure that what consumers want
and need are going to be provided when the market won\'t do it.

CHAIRMAN POWELL: Yes, yes, yes, and yes. There is nothing about what you
said I don\'t 100 percent agreement with.

MS. O\'REILLY: Is there in place any task force that the FCC is part of
that has that sort of as their focus and could receive recommendations
from this committee about certain technologies that we would at least
like the \-- that collaborative to look at as to whether or not the
absence of those make it an appropriate item for government purchase to
develop those standards, those specs?

CHAIRMAN POWELL: I\'m not sure. I will give you a couple of suggestions
so that we pursue together just off the top of my head.

While we have some intersection, I think, with the governmental entities
that are established for standards under the Americans With Disabilities
Act, for example, that we have an official role with respect to some
capacity in that regard, one, that could be explored.

Two, though, I think, for example, at least as I read it, the
administration is contemplating their own broadband policy and their own
thoughts about stimulating development in technology. I think that\'s an
important endeavor for you all and as a community for us to intercept
with.

For example, I mean, the press releases that I am reading talk a lot
about government using its authority on the demand side for services and
goods, and having a component like that built into that policy would be
very, very useful, and I would urge, and, you know, I will make a foray
as well to Nancy Victory at NTI in the commerce department.

But I think in many ways it\'s very, very important to get those issues
into the commerce department which is, in essence, the president\'s
technical advisors and broadband and telecom policy advisors.

We are a very important part of that, but we are an independent agency,
and just like what people think, the White House doesn\'t call and say,
so what should be our broadband policy. They call Nancy, and they ask
Secretary Evans to develop those things. And I think we need to make
sure you are getting your voices effectively into that line of policy
development as much or more as this one as well.

And so I think you could probably, one, I raise those issues with her,
and two, I think this group can talk about how to provide greater input
to their processes where a lot of that is being developed. GSA, who is
the legal purchasers of stuff for the United States government, et
cetera, et cetera.

MS. ROOKER: One last question.

CHAIRMAN POWELL: Yes, sir?

MR. McELDOWNEY: Hi. Ken McEldowney, Consumer Action.

We have been studying telethon rates since the break up of AT&T. And
given the recent trends in telethon and cable industry to the mergers in
cable and the long distance companies losing 15 to 20 percent of their
revenue every year, we are very concerned in terms of whether two years
down the road there is going to be a portable voice- grade telephone
service for low and moderate income consumers.

I am wondering whether or not you see an additional regulatory role that
may be needed at the state and federal level to ensure that voice-grade
customers continue to get affordable service given the changes that are
taking place in those two industries.

CHAIRMAN POWELL: Yes, I actually \-- I actually do. One, I think that
the universal service partner isn\'t going anywhere. I don\'t think,
despite some of the sort of things I see that, oh, my God, this is going
to happen, that is going to happen, it\'s going to be undermined, I
don\'t believe that at all.

One, I know that we\'re not going to let that happen to the extent that
we can reach it.

Two, if you look at some of the proceedings we are doing, we are doing
at least two major proceedings looking at the issues associated with
charges on \-- yesterday, just yesterday at the open agenda meeting we
voted items to explore, questions about line item proliferation and how
those counts are calculated on consumer bills, which has a consumer cost
effect. There is another item that\'s similar about collection,
contribution factors and how to measure so that we ensure that there is
a right balance between making sure the fund is sustained and not having
consumers bear too much of the cost of that. So those are two major
items.

We also, even in the broadband item, which gets all this negative
attention, and it is a major section, probably more ink dedicated in
that item to an evaluation of universal service in a broadband
environment than any other subject matter, including the open
suggestion, which I will reiterate, either that I wouldn\'t hesitate to
consider the extension of universal service contribution obligations on
other classes of carriers who do not pay them now.

You know, we openly considered whether, for example, cable services, we
have already said, I think, that cable services providing telephone will
have to contribute. We may consider seriously whether for the provision
of broadband cable modem services, or other information service
providers will have to contribute.

And I think that shows that we are very sort of guarded about what the
impacts of changes in the marketplace will be on sustainability of
universal service which is, in essence, the affordability of service.

The other thing though we have to be cognizant of, I mean, you know,
part of my job which stinks is you really are always trying to find
balance. We have a huge problem in the telecom sector right now. It is
steeply depressed. Now, we can trivualize that if we want to, but it is
becoming a no joke, serious problem in the telecom sector.

And oh, by the way, we\'re not just talking about the small clique
entrepreneurs anymore, you know, and some people can be dismissive and
say, oh, well, their business bombed. You know, we are talking about
Quest and Global Crossing, and World Com in the newspapers yesterday. I
mean, they are the big guys, but there is another thing they are, which
is they are the common carriers of last resort for hundreds of people in
rural and midwest America.

And it is a capital crisis, and at some point the government is always
struggling with the balance of decisions between, yes, rates want to be
low, but if there begins to be serious capital liquidity challenges and
service starts to suffer, you know, that\'s what we\'ll start to
complain about.

I mean, there is never any clean answer to that other than to say
you\'re always trying to adjust the ballast of these issues to ensure
that consumers are not paying more than their fair share, but that there
is enough viability in the economic models for these carriers to sustain
themselves in a way that most importantly improves the quality that
people have become accustomed to.

And I\'ll tell you, I find this very, very difficult to do. But I also
have to be candid and say but consumers are an important part of that
economic equation, and you know, they can\'t be completely off the table
for the consideration of what the right economic model, because when
they are you get the California energy crisis, in my opinion. You run
the risk of removing a variable that is essential to any economic
system.

And so yes, there will be price pressures. There will also be
countervailing efforts to limit them.

It\'s interesting, consolidation, which, you know, I don\'t \-- I don\'t
ever take a value proposition on. It can be good or bad. It depends on
what we are seeing. I think the phone industry is sort of fairly matured
in how much consolidation before I start getting a lot more nervous.

But on the other hand, you can \-- you know, if you really understand
the pressures that are being put by Wall Street for more consolidation
in order to improve the fundamentals of a balance sheet, and you know, a
lot of times I think, oh, this is just Wall Street guys who want to make
money, but sometimes when you look at it you realize there are some
questions at least.

Every analyst I read says the biggest problem and the big \-- you
pointed out the long distance companies \-- excess capacity. You know,
we think it\'s not competitive but in capital terms they think it\'s
higher competitive, and the price wars are killing them. AT&T\'s
revenues dropped global crossing, the big long-haul carriers have had
steady declines because of \-- you know, we say that three-quarters of
the fibers in the United States aren\'t lit. I didn\'t mean to give you
economics.

One last and we\'re done. One more? Is that alright with you, Ms.
Rooker? I\'m sorry.

MS. ROOKER: Absolutely.

CHAIRMAN POWELL: Okay.

MR. JAMES: Good morning. Vernon James, San Carlos Apache Tribe.

You were talking about the affordability of telecommunications in rural
America, and there is spectrum that is going to become available in the
TV broadcast spectrum, and set aside for wireless.

Now, rural America is served by small CLICS \-- ILECs, I\'m sorry. And
we need to make sure that these ILECs have the opportunity to be it for
this spectrum so that they can provide services.

My request to you is to support those rural ILECs so that they can get a
piece of this spectrum so that they could provide affordability of
wireless services in rural America.

Thank you.

CHAIRMAN POWELL: No, we \-- that\'s a good \-- you know, that\'s a very
good point. We do take cognizance of those challenges. Indeed, I am
trying to remember which proceeding, but just a few weeks ago we adopted
auction service rules for band of spectrum, and cut it in a certain way
to make it really much more viable for rural interests by geographic
distinctions.

And I remember the policy debate was a conscious decision to use this as
an opportunity to improve availability for rural and more remote
providers because we were going to design the jurisdictional
limitations, and the other service limitations in a way that would
really give them an advantage in the auction over larger carriers who
are much more interested generally in nationwide spectrum, large
geographic area blocks. That\'s the spectrum they tend to have the
highest interest in, for good reasons.

A lot of those smaller carriers you are talking about don\'t have that
scale, don\'t have the scope, and don\'t even have that interest. They
don\'t want to be a nationwide carrier. They might want to serve, you
know, Pine Ridge, or some more limited geographic scope.

So sometimes we do have that obligation, and I think that we have
released on it a couple of times recently, and I am sure whenever that
spectrum comes back on, I\'m not holding my breath, it will be any day
soon, when it does come back on I\'m sure those same kinds of
considerations would be made as to how to issue it.

Thank you all for indulging me. Have a good and productive day, and we
look forward to working with you.

MS. ROOKER: Chairman Powell, thank you.

(Applause.)

MR. SNOWDEN: I know we are running a little bit behind but I wanted to
just let you know that one of the things that we were talking about
earlier was we want more recommendations from this committee. And as we
go forward, the Chairman has outlined five priority areas which I know I
think you have all received, but I will just reiterate them: broadband
deployment; media ownerships; spectrum management; accomplishment
policy; and homeland security, and the side issue of digital television.

If there are issues that the Chairman has outlined for the agency as a
priority that you all want to make comments on and give us advice,
please take that up as one of your agenda items in future meetings. So
we encourage you to give us information. We encourage you to participate
and continue to give us good advice as we move forward.

And if there are any questions for me, I will be happy to take them. But
if not, I will turn it back over to Ms. Rooker.

(No response.)

MR. SNOWDEN: I\'m not fool, I\'ll get off the podium. Thank you.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you so much, Dane.

(Applause.)

MS. ROOKER: I would like us to go over a few business items here. We
have a very busy agenda. There will not be break-out sessions, but
rather there will be opportunities for questions and answers after each
of our speakers, and then at the end of each of the sessions there will
be an opportunity for us to discuss and come up with recommendations and
so on.

I would just like to emphasize what you have heard from the Chair of the
Commission and from Dane Snowden, and that is that we have been assigned
a role to speak as a voice to the FCC, and I think this is our
opportunity.

As far as today\'s meeting is concerned, I am hoping we will come out of
it with some consensus that we can put together as a report to the FCC.
I would like to just say that this is our chance to speak on behalf of
our constituents, and I think it\'s very important that we do so, and
that we present recommendations.

Now, I would like to also thank some people whose tireless efforts have
made this meeting possible, and of course, the first person on the top
of my list is always Scott Marshall. Need I say.

I also want to thank Suzanne Perrin, and particularly for Arlene
Alexander and Solina Griffith who have been here rather late several
night putting together things for this meeting.

Suzanne Perrin\'s staff, many of them we just \-- there are just too
many of them to mention, but thanks to all of them.

Brian Millen is responsible for doing an outstanding job on the rail
production. I would like to thank you.

Also, I ought to note we are going to defer the approval of the minutes
for the November meeting until the June meeting because they were late
coming out. So I don\'t think that we are going to have time to do that.

I would like to go around the room and very briefly just say who you are
and your corporation, please, or your association, or why you are here,
briefly, briefly. Let\'s start with Vernon James.

MR. JAMES: Good morning. Vernon James, San Carlos Apache Tribe.

MS. LINKE-ELLIS: Nanci Linke-Ellis, TRIPOD Captioned Films.

ANDREA WILLIAMS, Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association.

MR. POEHLMAN: David Poehlman, American Council of the Blind.

MR. ELLIS: Rich Ellis from Verizon.

MS. CARROLL: Julie Carroll, the Information Technology Technical
Assistance and Training Center.

MS. RUBY: Laura Ruby, Microsoft.

MR. TOBIAS: Jim Tobias, Inclusive Technologies.

MS. PALMER: Susan Palmer, Cingular Wireless.

MS. NELSON: Belinda Nelson, Gila River Telecommunications.

MS. NIXON: Shelly Nixon.

MR. SCHROEDER: Paul Schroeder, Alliance for Public Technology.

MR. BOWEN: Clay Bowen with the National Association of Relay
Administration.

MS. AYLWARD: Rayna Aylward with Mitsubishi Electric America Foundation.

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: Bob Chrostowski, Elexa America, and representing TIA,
Telecommunication Industry Association.

MS. BRUNS: Andrea Bruns, NCTA.

MR. GOLDBERG: Larry Goldberg, WGBH National Center for Accessible Media.

MS. HARKINS: Judy Harkins, Gallaudet University.

MR. KRAMER: Jeff Kramer, AARP.

MS. O\'REILLY: Kathleen O\'Reilly. I am a public agency attorney
representing various consumer groups.

MR. DelCASINO: Mike DelCasino, AT&T.

MR. ROCHIN: Refugio Rochin, Smithsonian Institute.

MR. McELDOWNEY: Ken McEldowney, Consumer Action.

MS. DEAN: Kate Dean from TRAC.

MR. LITTLE: Milton Little, the National Urban League.

MR. SEGALMAN: Bob Segalman. I am here thanks to AT&T.

MS. KIRSCH: I am Karen Kirsch. I\'m with the National Association of
Broadcasters.

MR. KALTENBACH: Matt Kaltenbach, Ericsson.

MR. WHITE: (Not on microphone.) Andy White \--Incorporated. I am
representing \-- Network \--

MS. BATTAT: Brenda Battat with Self Help for Hard of Hearing People.

MR. JACOBS: Steve Jacobs, IDEAL at NCR.

MR. MARSHALL: Scott Marshall, FCC.

MS. ROOKER: And I am Shirley Rooker with Call for Action.

Thank you for being here. I would also like to thank Cingular Wireless
and Susan Palmer for making breakfast and lunch possible today. Thank
you. We shall eat.

Let\'s move right along to our agenda items.

Homeland security has become such an important topic in the wake of the
9-11 terrorist attacks, and it\'s something that many of you requested
be addressed by this committee. In response to that interest, we are
very pleased to have the Chair of the Homeland Security Policy Council
within the FCC as a feature speaker today.

In fact, Marsha MacBride is not new to this committee. She has been very
helpful in the past, speaking to us at our second meeting, and giving us
insights into Chairman Powell\'s priorities for the FCC.

Please join me in welcoming Marsha MacBride, Chief of Staff to the
Federal Communications Commission.

(Applause.)

MS. MacBRIDE: Well, it\'s a pleasure to be again, and I am wearing a
different hat today. Last time I came and talked about priorities and
the Commission\'s agenda, and now I\'m going to talk as chief of or
chair of the Homeland Security Policy Council.

The policy council was formed after September 11th to really re-energize
and focus the Commission\'s efforts on its rules and regulations that
deal with public safety, national security, preventive and restorative
measures by all of the various industries that we are regulating.

The policy council is made up of senior members from each of the
bureaus, some of which you will hear from today, and I want to take this
moment to introduce Jeff Carlisle who is from the Common Carrier Bureau.
He is the senior deputy there. And I also want to take a moment to
introduce Linda Blair, if she will stand please, who is my deputy on
this, and obviously the one who does all the work.

The policy council is made up of senior members of each of the bureaus
because the purpose of the policy council is to help the policy council
learn what each of the bureaus identify as their major challenges in the
area; help us be kind of headlights for what we should be doing,
prioritize, make sure the Commission is addressing all of these various
issues; and to try and coordinate those efforts so we are moving
forward; and also, to be honest with you, drive the process a little bit
and have somebody, and a group of people sitting there, well, we\'ve got
to get this done, we\'ve got to get this done.

The purpose of it, as I said earlier, is to continuously review our
rules across all of the various areas, and we, in addition to that \--
you know, I\'m going to talk about some examples of things that we have
worked on already and what we are going to be working on.

The other purpose of the Homeland Security Policy Council, and another
role on the chief of staff side, is to coordinate very closely with
other government entities. As you probably notice, we have a lot of
government entities in Washington right now dealing with homeland
security. We have the Office of Homeland Security. We have the Critical
Infrastructure Protection Board, and we many, many proliferations of
other organizations under those, many of which all deal with the
industry in different ways. And so we are working very hard just to
coordinate it and work with them.

When the Chairman and I, when he was a commissioner, he was a defense
commissioner, and did Y2K, and for 18 months I actually assisted him on
that effort. Now you can kind of understand the purpose of the hat shift
here. And we worked very closely with industry to try and organize our
efforts, to try and get the industries that rely on telecom, like the
banking industry, the energy industry, have them be knowledgeable about
what the industry was doing to get ready. And we really developed a lot
of close working relationships which are all in place for this effort.

And it has been actually easier this time around because it\'s not so
new to the types of groups of people that we interface. And I am very
pleased to say that a lot of the other safety groups I go around to, I
walk into a room and it\'s like, ah-yes, I just was sent back two years.
We are all still here doing the same thing. But there is a great benefit
to that, and I think we have got a lot started right away.

One of the things that we did was re-charter the NRIC, our Network
Reliability and Interoperability Council, and put in their charter a
very, very strong emphasis on homeland security.

What is different about Y2K and now is that we \-- in Y2K, we had owned
\-- the FCC really owned a piece of the industry and getting information
out as to their preparedness. This time around, these are
defense-related issues. These are first responders, homeland security
issues. And so the jurisdiction, to my mind, is more separated. That\'s
why we need to work very closely with our executive side people who are
really the focus of, boy, if there is an emergency, they are the ones
that are on the front lines, their communications that we are trying to
facilitate.

But on the other hand, the industry itself has clients and the people
that rely on them that want to know information as well. So we have put
most of the charter as best practices. We have asked them, the industry,
to work with itself to come up with and identify vulnerabilities but to
basically give us a list of best practices for their systems, both on a
preventive measures and then also restorative measures.

And I think we will see, we have a very short time line for most of
those things. We are asking for full sets of complete recommendations by
the end of this year. And then the next year a lot of our focus will be
then taking that information and trying to get it out to the communities
in terms of local communities, and local telephone companies; making
sure that they are talking to each other in terms of access, making sure
telephone people have access to the sites where there is damages; making
sure that electric companies and telephone companies on a local level
are all talking to each other about what their personal needs are;
talking to each other about how to prioritize what goes on;
prioritization itself, which is something that the Commission has long
been involved in, will change very much on the nature of the emergency.

An infrastructure emergency, which is what you would have in New York,
requires a very different level of priority restorative services than
say a tele-medicine level, or one that involved a biological scare of
some kind.

So we really have to think, and unfortunately, it\'s very frightening
when you go to some of these groups, and they sit and talk about their
worst case scenarios, and I know now more than I ever wanted to know,
but that is kind of what we have to do. We have to be constantly sitting
and thinking. We have to think and then try to figure out what is the
likelihood of that, and what do we have to build into the networks and
the systems, and the communities in order to make sure that we can very
quickly respond.

The toughest, and I also want to say that we are doing this also on the
media side, which is new. We are creating a new FACA, like yours, for
the \-- and it\'s called the Media Reliability and Security FACA. And
the purpose of that is to really focus on media-related things.

Communities rely very much on information flow. We have the Emergency
Alert System which is clearly a very important system, but in some ways
one of last resort. When people want to know information, they want it
from their radio, they want it from television, and television, again,
is delivered to a large number of people via cable or via satellite.
This is a network. And any one of the pieces that drops down during the
course of this could cause quite a bit of panic and maybe undue and
unnecessary panic because people are used to being able to turn on their
television, getting their local broadcast station, getting a cable
network to give them information about an emergency.

So we are trying to get them altogether to think about how can they best
on the local community side as well as in the big cities protect against
having, they said, that could be prevented not happen.

For instance, in New York, we lost a tremendous number of network
television feeds. But fortunately, most of those networks were cabled by
hard cable to the local cable system. So if you had cable, you were
still getting information from your local broadcasters on the local
issues that were going on there. And I think that\'s a very important
thing to continue to happen.

What is the corollary to that in a small market, what is a corollary to
that in places where there are lots of facilities that are co-located,
what measures should be taken. And those are the kinds of things that
the media group will be working on.

And I think, to the extent that there are issues which I think Jeff is
going to talk a little bit more about, about communications, these are
both places where I think we will be reaching out. We will be bringing
groups from yours into our working groups on these, and we can try and
help and facilitate information because obviously information flow to
the community, so media representative is extremely important, and part
of what we are trying to figure out how to build into and have it be
systematic for the groups that actually provides the services.

One of our most immediate challenges, as you can probably guess, is in
the wireless area. We actually have pretty good reports, not perfect by
any stretch, but pretty good reports about interoperability among safety
providers in New York City because we have taken a lot of measures over
the last years to get it there.

But homeland security offers kind of a different, a different challenge
in that it used to be if you had local providers or local responders and
then you had FEMA, those were kind of your two levels, and they have
been working together a long time. They were working during Hurricane
Andrew, and all of these areas. That\'s where they have been very used
to working together.

But when you have something like happened in New York you have your
first responders, you have your county responds, you have your state
responders, and then you have your federal responders. That\'s a lot of
people that all need to be able to talk to each other at one time.

So it\'s presenting kind of a new challenge. It\'s one of the areas that
we have been looking at in wireless has been this priority access
service, and how you give a small number of the federal, the outside
ring, whether they be through the FBI or otherwise, an ability to get
information and get communications into the very center of what\'s going
on, and then in fact out again, especially in something like this where
we had it happen in two separate cities, and we\'re looking at, okay,
where else might this happen, what else do we need to do. That has got
to come out to the federal level, and information that they have has to
come out to the federal level very quickly, and then back in again.

So these are some challenges the wireless industry is facing, the
federal government is facing, and priority access service on wireless,
which is something that has been used on the wire line systems for a
long time, is one step or one area in which we can try and facilitate
the ability of communication systems to prioritize national level users
who really need to talk to people on the ground.

The other one that we\'re really looking at is an area in which we have
been wringing our hands now for many, many years, we have made some
small incremental steps, it will continue to happen, we issued an order
yesterday asking about some very major reorganization plans for the 800
megahertz band where a lot of providers are now buying equipment for,
and we are very anxious to try and move in that direction too to try and
bring some cohesiveness to the bands and limit interference that\'s
occurring that we didn\'t anticipate, and that\'s a very important piece
because that\'s first responder, second responder rings, and those two
really have to be very highly coordinated.

And the other thing that we are doing is looking for other places like
4.9 gigahertz where we can offer broadband capacities on a wireless
basis, so we can \-- and there are a lot of wireless companies that are
doing some of thing where we can actually offer a fire fighter on the
screen of a PDA or a hand-held device that would put up on it
immediately a plan of the building or other types of information that
would be coming from another source and getting it directly.

And so there is a lot that technology offers for homeland security, and
we are just trying to make sure that we have an environment here that
facilities the development of the products and obviously their use.

The CIB and Dave\'s group is a very important piece of the homeland
security task force that Barbara Douglas, in the back there, is their
representative. And one of the things that I alluded to before that is
going to be very important is the forwarding of information out and
back. Homeland security by its very nature is a local issue because
that\'s the first responders, that is who has got on-site responsibility
for what\'s happened.

So we, as you can probably tell, are trying to develop things at the
federal level that we can push down to be helpful on the local level. We
also need to know what the local level is doing, and having that back
up. We are working very closely through Barbara with the Governor\'s
Association, the LSGAC, and anybody else, the states, that we can find
that is doing homeland security because as you and as they sit and look
at what their needs are then we can be told what they are, and they can
kind of be built into what we are doing.

Also, once we get this information, then we can kind of get it out
again. And the second year, because it\'s a two-year charter, will very
much be focused on, okay, we have got all this good information. Now
let\'s do something with it. Let\'s get it out to the communities. And
obviously the roles that the federal advisory committees such as
yourself play in that is extremely important.

So I won\'t take up anymore of your time. I just kind of wanted to give
you a big picture view of what the council is doing, and also so you can
be thinking about how you want to have inputs into that, and how you can
bring to us information about what your communities or constituents may
be doing and thinking about, their priorities on homeland security
because we are working with a clean slate here to a certain degree. We
really are open to trying to coordinate this in areas in which we
traditionally, as well as in areas in which we have not traditionally
been exercising this kind of authority.

So thank you very much.

MS. ROOKER: Do you have time to take a couple of questions?

MS. MacBRIDE: Yes.

MS. ROOKER: Do we have questions?

MS. MacBRIDE: Yes, Susan.

MS. ROOKER: Susan.

MS. PALMER: I am susan Palmer with Cingular Wireless.

We have been actively engaged in the issue of TTY access, and E9-1-1.
One of the things that has happened is we have done probably the best in
the end testing around emergency services through the PSAPs, and I know
that FCC doesn\'t have authority over the PSAPs.

We have been very concerned about what we found. There is over 7200
PSAPs, there is almost 40 different types of vendors for TTY equipment.

When we have done testing, we have gotten everything from \-- we do \--
the PSAPs do regular testing with voice just as they are supposed to do
\-- all the way to let me find the TTY. Oh, how do I plug it in? How do
I operate it?

This is a serious concern for anyone who is using a TTY as a life line,
and especially when it comes to homeland security types of things, the
need for emergency services. We find this very disturbing, and we are
wondering if there is a role that your organization can play, perhaps an
interagency role, to bring awareness about this issue.

MS. MacBRIDE: I do think so. We have another FACA that deals \-- that is
mostly the public safety operators themselves, and obviously, there is a
little cross-pollenization of some of these issues with that group, I
think would be very beneficial. But we are very aware of the fact that
all of the things that we can do at the federal level will only work as
well as the local level set up, and that\'s an issue that we are
bringing to the attention of the homeland security office, as well as
others in Washington who have money, and can maybe help look at the need
for this type of equipment to be in the local area.

But we are very \-- you know, that is a stumbling block for all of the
policies in the federal level, and I do think that we are focused on
that, and to the extent that we should be more or can be focused on
that, especially with particular issues on TTY, we ought to be doing it.

MS. PALMER: There is a lot of equipment also that\'s dated. There is
equipment that the vendors are no longer in business and there is not
systems to \--

MS. MacBRIDE: Well, one of the things that is very nerve-wracking, to
even the groups, the public safety groups, is their equipment is not as
up to date as it possibly could be, and that causes interference
problems, and it is not the most efficient way to use this especially.

So we are looking at it, they are too, but it does come down to money.

MS. ROOKER: One more question.

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: I have a question. Bob Chrostowski, TIA.

The issue of testing is alone as far as TTY wireless. From the
standpoint of the wire line community and as states have laws regarding
compliance with the Enhancement 9-1-1 usually testing takes a more
important requirement as businesses, for example, their support of the
law. The states need to be assured that when 9-1-1 is dialed, the call
is connected.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you. Thank you so much for being with us, Marsha.

MS. MacBRIDE: You\'re welcome. Thank you very much.

(Applause.)

MS. ROOKER: And next we will be hearing from Jeffrey Carlisle, who is
the Senior Deputy Chief of the Common Carrier Bureau. Jeffrey joined the
FCC last year. Prior to that he was in private practice and law.

Good morning.

MR. CARLISLE: Good morning. Thank you very much for having us here.
After Marsha\'s very broad look at the waterfront, I am tempted to say I
have nothing to add. However, I do.

Before I sort of launch into it, just a brief summary of what the Common
Carrier Bureau\'s role is right now, and some of the specific issues
that I understand you have asked about.

I thought I would relate an anecdote which was related to me a couple of
weeks ago by a very close friend of mine who is an executive at Verizon.

Everybody has their 9-11 stories, but I thought this was particularly
\-- it illustrated a lot of the issues that we are dealing with when on
9-11 there were a large number of people in the midtown Verizon building
who were in a conference room, and saw the second plane go into the
World Trade Tower.

About 25 executives from Verizon then went downtown because Verizon has
an emergency operation center near to where the World Trade Center was.
By the time they got down there, they walked into the emergency
operation center, and there was a \-- they got there shortly after the
south tower fell. They walked in and there is a \-- one of the engineers
was on the phone, was on his cell phone, \"I can\'t get dial tone on
floor 70 through 80 in the south tower. What\'s going on? Why can\'t I
get a dial tone?\"

These guys are underground and in this operation center they don\'t know
what has happened. And somebody had to go up to him, shake his shoulders
and say, \"There is no south tower, and you don\'t understand.\"

And he dropped his phone, his mouth fell open, and that was just the
start of what then became about a two-week look, even to the present
day, effort by Verizon to keep service going in downtown.

I guess this illustrates a couple of things. First of all, before 9-11,
we really didn\'t have a role in sort of contemplating these unthinkable
events. We had a role but it was really driven home to us that day that
if we were really going to be able to do our job to serve the public
interest, that we were really going to have to figure out what we could
appropriately do. There is an immediate impulse to do something, that
you have to do something. But what\'s our appropriate role, and
especially given that there were a whole bunch of other federal agencies
out there that have a certain amount of jurisdiction over this, as well
as state and local agencies who are quite often in the front line when a
national security emergency occurs.

And the second thing I think it illustrates is the need for the FCC to
really be the catalyst for working with industry and the end users on
these issues. We can\'t do it alone, and there are a lot of tremendously
committed people in industry and among consumer groups who are
interested in these issues who can contribute to the debate and who we
need in the debate, and providing input, and that we can learn from.

So that being said, what\'s our role? What does the Common Carrier
Bureau do with respect to the homeland security?

As Marsha mentioned, if a national security emergency actually happens,
there is a whole bunch of first, of front line agencies out there. The
Common Carrier Bureau is not the agency that is on the front line
immediately responding to a situation that is coming on. It\'s the local
governments, it\'s the state government, it\'s FEMA, it\'s the state
emergency management agencies. It\'s the national communications system.
It\'s not really our role to give front line people out there in
handling a situation.

However, what we can do is act as a clearinghouse for industry and end
users and government to make sure that the people who need to be getting
information from different agencies are going to the right places; that
if we need to get numbers set up in a switch, that the appropriate
companies are talking to each other, they can do that through the NCS,
but we also play a role because of our contacts in industry.

The second role that we really have in a national security emergency is
providing waivers. Quite frequently the companies that are doing the
work are quite rightly concerned that they may be violating various
regulations. When 9-11 occurred, our general message to them was don\'t
wait for the paperwork from us. Get the work done that you need to get
done to get service back up and running, and send us a waiver and we
will review it and we will catch up as we go along.

Our real function really is much more of a long-term function in terms
of establishing the preconditions for handling these types of events
better the next time. The system worked the way it was supposed to work.
The telecommunications service priority system, as administered by the
national communications system, did work the way it was supposed to
work. We didn\'t receive any appeals from it. We didn\'t really hear any
issues from any of the end users or from the industry with respect to
that program.

But are there things we could be doing better? Well, yeah, there are a
lot of things we can be doing better, and really our job right now is to
figure out what the appropriate programs to put into place are so that
the next time something like this happens we can react in a more
throughout and organized fashion, not that we didn\'t this last time,
but that we can do so better the next time.

I guess a few of the specific issues that I understood that you were
concerned about were, first of all, generally the need for secure
telecommunications network. I think the need for that is self-evident.
It essentially is the life line for people who need to know what\'s
going on in a crisis, is also a network that has its \-- that has a
defined limit on capacity.

So you have a situation where you have thousands of calls going in
through bottlenecks, and at that point you start having a problem of
people desperately trying to use this vital link in order to receive a
certain amount of comfort in an emergency, and not being able to use it.
That does happen.

So one of the industry standards that we could look at to make sure that
the network is being engineered in such a way that that comfort will
continue to be provided through that life line.

To focus specifically on the security of the network, there are
different levels of that. Of course, there is the physical security of
the network. The major issue that the Common Carrier Bureau has looked
at \-- well, we have not looked at it, but it has been in the press \--
has been co-location, for example, access of competitors to the network
and whether that compromises the security of the network.

There were some statements shortly after 9-11 about whether there were
physical \-- whether the very fact of access to the network by
competitors compromised the security of the network. We have seen this
as an issue that until we receive specific evidence or specific petition
that there is a problem, there is not \-- there is not something for us
to do at this point. Our current standards say that the incumbents can
apply whatever reasonable security precautions they apply to themselves
to their competitors.

So to us, it\'s not a competitive issue. Security of the network becomes
an issue of whether industry is doing what it needs to do to ensure
physical security of the network, or rather whether some more active
role on the part of the federal or state governments is required, and
this is something that we are hoping to explore through the Network
Reliability and Interoperability Council that was discussed earlier.

I also understand that there is some concern about whether the current
reporting thresholds are appropriate. Right now I believe the current
standard is if 30,000 lines are out for more than 30 minutes, we receive
a service outage report. This does not handle all possible outages that
could occur, and doesn\'t handle all outages that could be vitally
important to end users.

The question from that perspective, I think, is not so much that the
federal standards need to be changed, although that is a question that
can and should be asked. I think the question is let\'s look at
everybody who has a stake in receiving reports of service outages and
figure out whose is best placed to look at that. It may be that the
state or local governments receive outage reports at a much lower
threshold, and the procedures are already in place to receive those
reports.

It may be that better coordination with the state and local government
is the answer to this situation, so the FCC can have information about
what\'s going on rather than coming in and imposing a whole new set of
federal standards.

And I believe that Marsha touched briefly on the 9-1-1 issue in response
to a question, to one of the questions about working with the PSAPs. And
I reiterate what Marsha said. This is a situation \-- there is concern
about that. This is something that you necessarily need to deal with the
state and local governments given that they have the most direct
interaction with the PSAPs. But if there is a problem, which there
appears to be with ensuring that that relay service is available during
an emergency, then that is something that we are falling down on the job
if we\'re not actively talking with the state and local government and
the PSAPs and working through our backup to make sure that those
concerns are aired.

So that\'s sort of the high level summary of where we are at the Common
Carrier Bureau, and a few brief comments on a few specific issues. But
we look forward to receiving input from all of you on these issues, and
if you have any questions I would be happy to take those as well.

MS. ROOKER: Susan?

MS. PALMER: I just want to make a clarification. This is Susan Palmer
from Cingular Wireless.

The relay service was not the issue. It was actually the direct connect
to the 9-1-1 centers of PSAPs.

MR. CARLISLE: I apologize. That was my mistake. Sorry.

Rayna?

MS. AYLWARD: Rayna Aylward from the Mitsubishi Electric America
Foundation.

I am just curious. You were mentioning how many different agencies are
involved, and secondarily, and then, of course, there is the homeland
security office. I am just curious in general of how you are \-- the FCC
task force is relating to the other federal task force, and how it all
relates hopefully to homeland security.

MR. CARLISLE: That is a very good question. You see these charts that
get thrown around in the news of all the federal government agencies
involved with homeland security, and they look really daunting and huge,
and all of that.

Well, if you actually see the interrelationships between the different
committees, it doesn\'t get any easier because certain committees are
talking with other certain committees, which are talking with other
certain agencies, and there is a \-- it\'s our job to make sure that
there is more coordination in general within the federal government.

But specifically, I think the Homeland Security Policy Council has
served to rationalize that process within the FCC. Before, we have had
different bureaus attending different meetings all over Washington,
somewhere in the neighborhood of about \-- I know I am going to get the
number wrong, but I heard the number \-- something like 50 meeting every
two weeks. And there wasn\'t a terrific amount \-- just because of the
volume of meetings, the coordination certainly could have been better.

The Homeland Security Policy Council serves to do that. We now have a
process whereby every meeting that somebody goes to there is a report
that comes back to the Homeland Security Policy Council and is shared
with all the members. So if there is a discussion, for example, of some
sort of physical security standard in a conference all the way over on
the other side of time in a committee I have never heard of, I can at
least take a look at that and say, okay, I have somebody who knows about
that, and can have input into that process.

So within the FCC, we have tremendously improved the amount of
coordination we are able to do with the other agencies in a relatively
short period of time.

In terms of how we interact with the other groups, I would have to say
that with regard to communications that is still developing. The Office
of Homeland Security is \-- it has looked at some physical
infrastructure issues. The Critical Infrastructure Protection Board,
Richard Clark\'s group, has been look at cyber security issues.

We are here to provide input to the debate, and I know Marsha frequently
is in contact with the leadership in those groups to make sure that they
know we are here as a resource and that we can provide the input.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you so much.

MR. CARLISLE: Yeah.

MS. ROOKER: I really appreciate that. We are going to have to move on. I
think I am going to have to close up the questions. If you are going to
be around for awhile, you are welcome to stay.

MR. CARLISLE: I may have to go upstairs but I will try to come back.

MS. ROOKER: All right. Thank you so much, Jeffrey, Jeffrey Carlisle.

(Applause.)

MS. ROOKER: Joining us next to talk about the FCC\'s position on
homeland security is Pam Gregory. She is the Chief of the Disability
Rights Office, to the CIB. She has been with the FCC since 1966.

(Laughter.)

MS. ROOKER: You weren\'t even born \-- 1996, excuse me.

(Laughter.)

MS. ROOKER: Sorry, Pam. I\'m just giving you lots of experience.

MS. GREGORY: Thanks, Shirley.

I just wanted to kind of lay out a little bit of what I\'m going to talk
about. I don\'t want to repeat Jeff and Marsha MacBride. And I\'m going
to pull a Jeff, and say I agree and I agree.

I do have some slides. If you can put the

first \-- well, that\'s not it. Press it again.

I mistakenly did not give my power point presentation to the audio
visual people, and so we don\'t have the audio portion, which I will
explain why it is significant a little bit later on. But I\'m going to
talk basically about three things: access to emergency information via
television for persons who are deaf and hard of hearing. Then I\'m going
to go to people who are blind, low vision or have print disability. And
the third section is going to be on TRS.

Next slide. Next slide. Can I have the next slide, please? There we go.

Basically, many of you know this, especially from the disability
community, but when the Commission established rules on closed
captioning, and the closed caption rules really applied to regular kinds
of programming, and didn\'t account for emergencies. So the Commission
came out with new rules for emergencies, and these rules became in
effect in August of 2000.

We defined an emergency in a very broad term. We wanted it to be broad
because we knew that we didn\'t know what could happen in the future.
And we came up with a list of examples so people would know are the
kinds of things that we were thinking about to be covered, but we
specifically said that this did not include everything.

And from this portion of the rules, when we say what is accessible, we
don\'t require that it would actually be open caption or closed caption.
We will accept crawls. Crawls are thing that go across the bottom of the
television or even above it at the top of the screen, scrolls. It could
be a sideboard to the \-- you know, maybe the screen could be
partitioned in half, and half of the screen could be providing the
emergency information. And you know, in the worst case scenario, you
know, you can get a poster board and draw with a big, fat, thick, black
marker and make sure that information is accessible.

So we said we don\'t really care how it\'s done, but we need to make
sure that it\'s done because this information is vital.

In terms of who is covered, we said everyone is covered. Exemptions, no
exemptions.

And this is where it actually becomes interesting, when do the emergency
rules apply. We said that any time emergency information is provided. So
that means if you are watching your local news and your local news goes
to late-breaking news because there is a gas leak in downtown D.C., even
if it\'s in the middle of a regular scheduled newscast, that would be
considered emergency information.

Or sometimes you can be watching television and they can breaking into
programming and say we have got, you know, an emergency situation in
downtown D.C.

So it\'s actually \-- there is a lot of flexibility in terms of what we
consider emergency. What must be provided that there is an emergency,
how to deal with the emergency, and some of the critical elements on
what to do after the emergency, like if there is a flood, where to go
for shelter; where to go to get some \-- maybe even apply for a loan.

And there was no phase-in period. The rules were effective immediately.

The limitation is \-- the limitation is that if you have a national
television, national news network and there is an emergency in rural
Kansas, the national news network does not have to do it. It is
essentially primarily for local information.

There is another caveat that we had heard a lot from people with hearing
disabilities that there was a concern that sometimes the emergency
information would come up, but it would cover the captions, or the
captions would cover the emergency information. So what we did was we
created the no cover up. That\'s what we call it, the no cover up rule.

On September 11th, EAS was not activated. We heard some very good things
from the National Association of the Deaf, Telecommunications for the
Deaf, Incorporated. There was a great article in the New York Times. I
don\'t know if any of you read that. But if you want a copy of that, I
can provide you a copy.

We did hear about some problems in some communities. One person filed
four complaints. I think it was in Kansas, and it wasn\'t on the
eleventh. It was related to Anthrax scare perhaps a week later.

Behind the scenes the captioners really, really worked hard. One
captioner, Polly Medler, with National Caption Institution worked an
eight-hour shift which was really, really kind of dangerous for your
body. But she knew the line, the phone lines for shorts were valuable,
and she didn\'t want to risk to hang up and pass it on to another
captioner because she was afraid the next caption may not be able to get
a phone line, and it was tough because, you know, there was a whole new
vocabulary for all of us.

The next part of my presentation, the next slide, I wanted to go over
fairly quickly because basically what we did in the video description
rules, we kind of copied and pasted as much as we could for access for
people with wide, low vision or any kind of print disabilities. So
actually the rules are the same. The effective date was February 1,
2001. The definition of emergency, the examples of emergencies are the
same.

Of course, with this community what we want is an oral presentation
rather than a visual. Now, sometimes if you are watching television, you
can hear a beep, beep, beep and then you get a crawl that will say
\"Tornado in the area,\" you know, and basically that\'s what the crawl
says. It\'s typed up, but it\'s not oral. So if you are blind or have
low vision, you don\'t have access to it.

The problem that we were faced with video description is video
description actually is constant information in the natural pauses of a
presentation. If you have a newscast, it tends to be full of talk. I
mean, that\'s really what they are presenting, they are presenting news.
If an opportunity provide an equivalent in the breaks, so what we do is
we require a time so people who are blind or low vision, print
disability, will know that there is an emergency notification going on.

The same thing about what is covered, the same thing about exemptions,
and the same applications. And what must be provided is the same. And
the phase-in period, there is none. The rules have been effective since
February 1, 2001. The limitation is the same in terms of the geographic
location, and again similarly, we did not have any complaints filed
relating to September 11th or anything after September 11th.

And I do want to talk a little bit about relay. Relays, as many of you
know, is required by Title IV of the ADA, and it is required to be
offered 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In 2000, we had some new
rules, and part of these new rules actually contain an emergency
component.

So just in case someone is out there that doesn\'t know what a relay is,
it\'s a way for people who use a TTY, this is traditional relay. Bob
Segalman is going to talk about new rules and relay, how people who use
a TTY can talk with people who use a regular telephone.

So the first lag of the TTY user goes to the CA. The CA goes to the
pizza man, and basically you are billed end to end. So here is a chart
here. So I am in Rockville and I want to call Bethesda. What is
happening is is that my Rockville call actually is routed to Baltimore
where the relay center is, and back down to Bethesda, but I am billed as
it is a local call.

And there are a lot of cases where someone might be calling from San
Francisco to Houston, but that particular call is handled by a
communication assistant in Baltimore.

This is just kind of explaining a little bit about the process. I guess
I can see it in front of me. See how the TTY user and a phone user,
after seeing the middle, keep pressing please. The text, the first
portion is text. The second portion is voice, the third is voice back to
the CA and the end user, it reads it on the TTY.

Now, by the way, all my slides are in your handouts, and Brian, who made
the slides, made slides in some Braille too.

The Department of Justice came out with some really interesting \--
well, actually, they report some very impression under outreach efforts
with PSAPs under Title II of the ADA, because PSAPs fall within the
state and local government, trying to require PSAPs to take TTY calls.
Originally, what was happening is in a lot of PSAPs you would have one
PSAP, and then they would have maybe one TTY.

You might have 30 different PSAP emergency call taker stations, but you
would have maybe one TTY in the corner. So if a TTY call did come in,
sometimes it\'s not answered. Or if it was answered, the person didn\'t
know how to use a TTY. So what happened, DOJ actually required that each
individual station must be equipped to handle a TTY call.

So we encourage \-- encourage people, TTY users, if they want to call
9-1-1 to call via TTY. Now, in some instances we have heard the TTY, or
the PSAP sensor, not knowing what it is, and they think it\'s a dead
call, and some will hang up. So there is a need for ongoing training for
PSAP personnel, and it would be great if there was a technology that
would automatically detect a connection to a TTY.

And TTY users are always advised to press the space bar a couple of
times to indicate to the PSAP that there is a TTY on the line.

Susan Palmer was speaking about some of the problems with E9-1-1/TTY
capability and some of the PSAP issues. I just want to remind the CDTAC
that, you know, you all the perfect entity to make recommendations to
the FCC if you want us to work with other agencies, other kinds of
coordinating committees. So I\'m not telling you what to do. I\'m just
saying the ears are open.

Just a couple more slides, and then I will take some questions.

Now, the new rules in 2000, what we said is that \-- the reason I went
into the billing kind of being different is because when I as a hearing
person, when I call 9-1-1, that 9-1-1 sensor gets my ANI, they know my
phone number so they know the location, and if I pass out, they can
still send an ambulance to the right place.

But if I am calling on relay, what is going to happen is is they are
going to get Baltimore because I called \-- technically I\'ve called
Baltimore to make a local call. So what happens is, is now the relay
center is required to pass that on to the 9-1-1 center, and pass on the
phone number so the PSAP can give the service to the right people.

September 11th, Maryland, Maryland\'s governor or his state employees
\-- Maryland had a contingency plan where all the traffic ordinarily in
the relay was diverted to another state. And in terms of complaints on
TRS related to September 11th or any kind of subsequent Anthrax
activities, we didn\'t receive one.

Any questions? Dave?

MR. POEHLMAN: Thank you, Pam. This is David Poehlman with the American
Council of the Blind.

In the discussion of how to provide information about emergency
situations over the existing interchange/education/information networks
that are video-oriented, it was mentioned that the DVS model was looked
at sort of discarded, partially at least, because if you are looking at
a news broadcast it\'s all babble, and there is no retensive breath, so
you can\'t get a word in edgewise to provide the information.

Have there been any other models sought for this? For example, would it
not be prudent to have the capability to receive this information
through second audio, and to perhaps have equipment manufacturers
provide some kind of special automatic activation of SAP for emergency
situations that a person who has a need for that type of service could
set on their equipment?

I only look at this route because I know that it would \-- it might
possibly annoy some people and cause some other possible problems if an
alternative that I would suggest would be employed, which would be to
slightly modulate downward the voice of the announcer and overvoice the
emergency at the same time that it\'s being crawled across the screen,
or at least as synchronously as possible because as you know voice
crawls, everything else runs. And I guess that\'s what I had.

MS. GREGORY: Can I quote you on that voice crawls, everything else runs?

Two points. I mean, I think that basically you are asking, you know, how
can we make this better. I think that\'s basically what you are getting
at. And we are always open to ways to make it better. I can tell you
that. I mean, especially the emergency portions of the caption rules and
the video description rules are completely, completely supported by
everyone in the Commission.

I will say that there is a concern about going to SAP, to the second
body of programming channel, and the reason is is that not everyone has
SAP on their television or VCR. Another issue is with the EAS is that we
actually looked at EAS and because EAS is not always activated. In fact,
it\'s often not activated.

For example, it wasn\'t activated on September 11th. People who needed
vital information, if the accessibility requirements were tied to EAS,
they would still be denied that kind of vital information.

You know, as a committee, if you all have suggestions, we would love to
hear them.

Larry?

MR. GOLDBERG: Just a follow-up to Dave\'s question, maybe I should talk
to him privately.

MS. GREGORY: Steve? Oh.

MR. TOBIAS: Jim Tobias, Inclusive Technologies.

Pam, thank you very much, and I am hoping that some day we can have you
come back and describe the general operations of the disability rights
on this.

MS. GREGORY: Oh, you are going to get that today.

MR. TOBIAS: Today? Okay, under the complaints portion?

MS. GREGORY: Yes.

MR. TOBIAS: Not that I have any complaints about how the office is run.

MS. GREGORY: Of course not.

MR. TOBIAS: Okay.

MS. GREGORY: Of course not.

MR. TOBIAS: But just sticking on the emergency issue and kind of
seconding what Susan asked about before, I am concerned about whether
there is a plan for E9-1-1 access from text, from wireless text devices,
not only for people who are deaf or hard of hearing, and use them for
general communications, but the public at large. You know, any given
moment you might only have your text capability running.

MS. GREGORY: Thank you. Thanks, Shirley.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you very much, Pam.

(Applause.)

MS. ROOKER: Sorry about the 1966. I am aging her, aging her rapidly.

Now, we have a challenge. We have a short period of time and we are
going to have to come up with some discussions or recommendations on
what we just heard. I will entertain ideas from the floor as to how to
go about doing this.

I would make a suggestion that perhaps what we do is start out with the
overview by Marsha, spend a few minutes discussing that, see if we have
some consensus on what we want to say to the FCC, and then move on to
the other two speakers.

Is that agreeable or does someone have a better suggestion?

(No response.)

MS. ROOKER: Okay, since no one is willing to put themselves out here,
I\'m in the hot spot.

All right, let\'s take a look at the comments made by Marsha MacBride.
Would someone like to jump in with their thoughts on that?

(No response.)

MS. ROOKER: I can\'t believe this is a shy group.

Thank you. Susan Palmer.

MS. PALMER: Susan Palmer from Cingular Wireless.

And I want to invite Claude and Brenda and a lot of other people who \--
I would like, and I\'m not sure if this is the best portion or if we
should talk about it later to make some recommendation about working
with other agencies to address TTY access at PSAPs.

I think that, or at least a review would \-- and see what can be done to
improve or access across the board at the public safety answering
points.

MS. ROOKER: Well, that is certainly a very critical issue. Would this be
the appropriate place to do that or should we do that later in the
afternoon, looking at the agenda? Should we do it now?

Well, then let\'s flesh this out so that we have some recommendation to
the FCC.

Judith?

MS. HARKINS: I have been thinking that it\'s \-- it may be a good idea,
and I don\'t know if the FCC might initiate this time a federal advisory
committee on this because there are several agencies involved. There are
several industries involved. There are some 9-1-1 community, and of
course, consumers. We have technologies changing. We want to look at new
technologies, look at the issue of automating this process as much as
possible, and TRS\'s role. So I don\'t think there is any one rule patch
you can put on it. I think it needs to have something that is
significant as a federal advisory committee.

MS. ROOKER: So you are looking at this as multi-agency with consumer
representation.

MS. HARKINS: And multi-industry, yeah.

MS. ROOKER: And multi-industry.

Do we want to come up with this as one of the recommendations that we
put in our report? I think that\'s an excellent and thoughtful
suggestion.

Do we have that so that we can take it out of the notes because I
haven\'t really written it down completely?

Okay. Then would we like to vote on that, that this is something that
the committee is recommending? Do we have a consensus on it?

(No response.)

MS. ROOKER: I don\'t have any objections.

Thank you, Judith, very succinctly put.

MS. LINKE-ELLIS: Comments?

MS. ROOKER: Comments, yes. Nancy.

MS. LINKE-ELLIS: I would like to bring up something that is of concern.
Even before 9-11, that you do have your \-- you do have your national
security and you do have your public safety. But we also design it
according to the immediate area impact or attack, or you know, for
instance, the earthquake in North Ridge in 1994, it hit Seeson, which is
where \-- which is the National Center on Deafness Home, which meant all
the TTYs were down, all the telephones were down, and there was no
power. And the people who needed directly to have some kind of public
safety interaction to get out of buildings, there were a lot of people
killed, I think you have to separate where the actual site of the
emergency is from the security issue.

So that I see this as kind of four-prong thing, which means you might be
local groups.

MS. ROOKER: okay, so we are adding onto this the idea that this is going
out to the local community as well, and I believe that was one of the
things that was discussed is how important it was for it to come up to
the feds and back down from the feds. So this could certainly be an
addition to the recommendation on that that would be explored in some
depth.

MR. LINKE-ELLIS: The local people would make it happen.

MS. ROOKER: That\'s exactly right, and that was made very clear today,
and I think that is a very thoughtful discussion.

Andrea?

MS. WILLIAMS: I think we \--

MS. ROOKER: Wait a minute before she says. So could we put this in as a
recommendation also that this be one aspect of what we are recommending
in terms of the emergency? Okay. All right, got that? I love this.

MS. WILLIAMS: We should have \-- well, first of all, I want to make a
comment, and I\'m not sure how this

may \-- well, how this will play out in terms of the FCC\'s internal
procedures, but I think this committee should really endorse the role
that Barbara Douglas is going to be playing with the local and state
governments, particularly with NARU, the National Council of Mayors,
because they are the front line of defense on emergency preparation.
They are the one who give the piece of the funding they need.

So I think it\'s very important that we give Barbara Douglas the support
she needs to get that work done.

MS. ROOKER: I think that makes eminent sense. Do we have any objections
or discussions on that? Would that be part of our recommendations?

Susan, you have a suggestion on that?

MS. PALMER: I just have one thing to add, and that we have met with
NENA, and I don\'t want to imply at all that they don\'t care, but I
think there are significant challenges and I think this would go to one
of the challenges that they have.

MS. ROOKER: Okay, then that will be one of the recommendations.

I think Vernon had his hand up next.

MR. JAMES: Thank you, Shirley.

Just a comment. We talked about 9-1-1, and we take \-- you know, we take
for granted that 9-1-1 exists everywhere. In rural America, and
particularly on reservations, 9-1-1 doesn\'t exist at all. So we need to
talk about communities who don\'t have 9-1-1, and who want to develop
9-1-1 but don\'t know where to begin or how to fund it or just anything
about 9-1-1.

So my recommendation is that we look at rural America and the absence of
9-1-1, and how to bring it about.

MS. ROOKER: I think that also makes eminent sense. Do we have some
discussion on that? If it\'s not discussion related to this particular
point, then we put that in as one of our recommendations.

Okay. Then I believe that Larry down here \-- David, down here, Poehlman
was next.

MR. POEHLMAN: Dave Poehlman with the American Council of the Blind.

I just want to go back a little bit, and endorse the effort that is
underway that involves the state and local activities. And I believe we
were asked at some point in the discussion this morning to contemplate
the possibility of committee representation in this process. And I would
like to \-- like to put that out for discussion and maybe, you know, see
if we can at least begin the process of deciding how we can do that.

MS. ROOKER: You are absolutely right, David. As a matter of fact, that
was mentioned, I believe, by Jeff Carlisle, that the input from this and
representation would be very important, and that was one of the notes
that I made to myself was to explore how we can facilitate that. So I
think that\'s an excellent recommendation, and we will include that in
our notes to the FCC.

Now, let me see, I think Kathleen O\'Reilly was probably next. I
apologize if I have gotten out of order. And then Rayna. Kathleen.

MS. O\'REILLY: It involves the obvious concern about what the effect is
on persons with disabilities and consumers generally with outages in the
national security or national emergency context. I continue to be
concerned about the ongoing outages that have been every \--all over the
country that have nothing to do with national security or emergency, and
the increasing number where for hours at a time thousands and sometimes
hundreds of thousands of people have no ability to use 9-1-1 because of
an outage.

And although it\'s encouraging to hear that the FCC has rechartered
NRIC, one of the ongoing frustrations since \'91 or \'92 was that the
original charter had it\'s mission to maintain reliability which if you
think back to a lot of technologies that didn\'t even exist back with
the original charter, that became too convenient a hook for the industry
to say that they didn\'t have to use new technologies in conjunction
with its service quality.

And so I bring up continually intense feeling to this since I\'m the
only consumer representative on the Network Reliability Steering
Committee. And so gradually I think that the industry has come along to
understand that it\'s got to improve network reliability, not to
maintain it.

And so since NRIC, I am just hearing this morning, has been
re-chartered, I would hope there is still time to urge the FCC, if they
did not change the language of the charter language, to talk about
improving, not simply maintaining that they do.

And that when the 9-1-1 outages are routinely the result of not having
followed industry-developed standards, and so I think that if the FCC
could be encouraged to play not only the important role that they do now
of having that information gathered and put on their web site, and I
think they need to get a lot of pressure to keep it on the web site
because there is a lot of pressure to have that left off the web site.
It is our only ability to keep on top of these outages, to then find out
what the causes were, and I think that there needs to be more and more
public awareness of these 9-1-1 outages that are happening all over the
country where life is literally at stake.

And so I think that there is much to applaud the FCC on, but I think as
a group we have an ability to ask for some more.

MS. ROOKER: So you would be suggesting that we ask them to strengthen,
to look at, strengthen, reevaluate and to do as much as possible to
lessen the outages and the impact on people who are deprived of 9-1-1?

MS. O\'REILLY: I would be glad to develop a short little shopping list
for the next meeting to circulate as to the more specifics.

MS. ROOKER: I think that\'s a great idea.

MS. O\'REILLY: I would be glad to look at this newly developed NRCI
standard, charter. And also I think both the industry and the FCC, just
at the last meeting I went to last week, I could be commended on one of
the events that I won\'t talk about, but I think that this is a group
here today that has a very, very strong stake in some of the additional
specific improvements, some of which we have been trying to get for
years, and some, I think, have taken on an increased urgency because of
national security.

MS. ROOKER: Why don\'t we defer this from being included in our
recommendations until we have a look at the specific items and what you
are going to put together for us for our June meeting, and we could have
that as a separate recommendation. Would that be acceptable to you?

MS. O\'REILLY: That would be more than acceptable. Today is an
opportunity to simply express the various concerns and emphasis that are
now being directed towards national security-related outages \--

MS. ROOKER: Right.

MS. O\'REILLY: \-- for persons with disabilities. We have seen that kind
of attention and focus for non-national emergency and security-related
outages.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. We will put a part of that in there, but reserve in
making detailed recommendations until we get to after the June meeting.

MS. O\'REILLY: Fine.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you, Kathleen.

Now Rayna, I believe, was next, was she?

MS. AYLWARD: I have got \-- I have probably \-- I have already given you
one comment. Let me \--

MS. ROOKER: Bob, please.

MS. AYLWARD: Shirley, I really wanted to speak.

MS. ROOKER: Oh, you wanted. I\'m sorry. Excuse me.

MS. AYLWARD: Andrea was \-- it looked like she had something very, very
related to what just \-- the comment that was just made, so I just
wanted to say \--

MS. ROOKER: Okay. Excuse me. You\'re next, Bob. Andrea, sorry.

MS. AYLWARD: It\'s my understanding that NRIC is meeting next Friday,
and that, in fact, that part of that meeting will be discussing the new
charter. So I am under the impression that there was going to be some
discussion on it, whether the FCC was even going to \-- was going to
look at what the new mission should be and changed circumstances.

I do know that one of the things that we see as a positive, in the past
the level of representation from the industry, not to say that staff is
not adequate, but we all know where the buck stops in a company. And
it\'s my understanding that NRIC will \-- with respect to wireless
carriers will be \-- members will be chief executive officer on those
council meetings. So I think you may see many different approach and
maybe some very decision-making because you will have the people there
who can make the decisions.

MS. ROOKER: You make a good point. I would hope that the \-- because so
often the frustration is that the engineers know what need to be done,
they want to do it, but they are not getting the answer from on top.

The flip side of that is I have been at meetings where it\'s the CEOs
and the lawyers, and they don\'t know what they are talking about when
it comes to what is either technically needed or feasible.

And so I think that I would hope that NRIC at the top levels as far as
the FCC would recognize the invaluable input and different expertise
that comes from the CFO, the CEO.

MS. AYLWARD: Right.

MS. ROOKER: But that if there aren\'t engineers there who day to day
know what these networks are, and know what the standards are, it\'s a
lot of wonderful theory that is never going to work.

MS. AYLWARD: Well, Kathleen, I think I can assure you from the wireless
standpoint that, you know, CTIA, we had dedicated an individual engineer
that our CEOs are going to be very, very well briefed \--

MS. ROOKER: Right.

MS. AYLWARD: \-- in terms the engineering aspect as well as the business
aspect of it.

MS. ROOKER: Maybe you at the break could tell me more about when the
meeting is and maybe I will just go and talk to them myself.

If you want to know more about NRIC, I would just let you know that
their charter is on the FCC web site under the Homeland Security Policy
Council section. So if you want to check it out, go to the FCC.gov web
site. That will bring that there.

Now, I think we have Bob.

MR. SEGALMAN: Thank you. One of the problems in California is the 9-1-1
with people with speech disabilities is that we are being told to dial
9-1-1 directly, not through speech to speech. But the 9-1-1 operators
are not trained to deal with people with speech disabilities because,
because of the low call volume. So I wanted you to be aware of this
problem.

MS. ROOKER: Okay, thank you.

So the recommendation here is is that we have to look into what can be
done to facilitate access for people with speech disabilities in
California.

Is that true with other states, that we have that same issue?

(No response.)

MS. ROOKER: Well, is this a follow up to him? Okay.

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: Regarding 9-1-1, there is two facets to it. There is
9-1-1 and there is Enhanced 9-1-1. Does everybody know the difference
between the two?

The difference plainly put is that with Enhanced 9-1-1 the public safety
answering center receives information on the call that identifies the
caller through a look-up database. When you use a relay service or any
other service in between, you loose the benefits of Enhanced 9-1-1.
Possibly that\'s the reason why pointing towards dialing 9-1-1 directly.

Again, with the relay service on a TTY call, there is no way to identify
the TTY caller because, as was pointed out, the call travels a distance
and then comes back.

The problem that is not, or that the industry faced, and I can speak
well for the wire line side, is that the carriers themselves, the ILACs,
while they are responsible for ESAP support, they do not necessarily
follow published standards, ANSI standards that the telecommunication
industry develops.

TIA has been well involved with what the \-- the involvement of
standards under ANSI that sets the operating requirements performance
and the driveability. But certain ILACs do not follow the standards.
They make their own standards so you don\'t have a universal mechanism
across the country. That is a problem as well.

MS. ROOKER: Are we at the point where there is something here that we
can put in as a recommendation to the FCC that we would want to include
in our report on this meeting?

My technology is limited so I can\'t really \--

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: In that regard, the National Emergency Numbering
Association, NENA, is actively promoting Enhanced 9-1-1 support across
the United States.

One, they are promoting model legislation so that all states are
somewhat the same although they think that\'s not achievable owing to
the states\' rights.

And secondly, NENA is going to be petitioning the FCC under Part 68 to
have the carriers follow specific standards so that the whole package
fits together.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. So that would be what the recommendation would be, is
that there would be some standards set up for all the carriers so that
there is consistency from one area to the other which would take care of
the problem that Bob is asking us to address?

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: That would be of benefit for both the users\'
standpoint and the manufacturers\' standpoint to not have to \--

MS. ROOKER: How does the committee feel about that?

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: \-- equipment that \--

MS. ROOKER: Do you have problems or is this something that we can put in
our recommendations? Do we have a consensus on that?

(No response.)

MS. ROOKER: Okay, we\'re moving right along. Thank you very much.

Steve.

MR. JACOBS: Thank you. This is more general in nature recommendation to
include as a recommendation \-- I am repeating myself.

Judy mentioned \-- oh, by the way, this is \-- did I say who I am?

MS. ROOKER: I did, but I said only your first name.

MR. JACOBS: This is Steve Jacobs from IDEAL at NCR.

At a very high level it seems to make sense to take a look at what is
being done in mainstream industry in the area of alert, and see if in
any sense in any of the issues we are discussing we can piggyback on
what is currently being done for economies of scale.

For example, I carry a pager that lets me know when certain stocks go
down or up in price. And I think there may be something to say for that.

MS. ROOKER: Okay, thank you.

Now, we are getting perilously behind, close to being late, late.

Does someone else have further suggestions, or if you want to follow up
on discussion? Let\'s take five more minutes and then we are going to
take a very brief break.

Okay, Larry.

MR. GOLDBERG: I want to follow up a little bit on what Pam was talking
about.

MS. ROOKER: Let me ask first if someone has a comment that would be new
to what our previous discussion has been?

All right. Yes, we do have one, and then I will come to you.

MR. KALTENBACH: I\'m sorry. I may be jumping in out of turn.

I wanted to make a comment about the delivery \--

MS. ROOKER: I\'m not looking for comment. Are you making a
recommendation that we put into \-- I am seeking right now the things
that we want to put in as recommendations to the FCC. We are reserving
comment time for in a minute.

MS. KALTENBACH: I do. I feel that beyond the NENA commentary that was
made that we should attempt to feed recommendations proactively into
Phase 3 and Phase 4 rollouts to include disability enhancements for EAS
location routing, and other services that are being discussed here.

So as part of our recommendation, we should try to proactively identify
the governing activities that make use of these missing features in our
communication systems and act upon them, hopefully with our
recommendations towards what features are missing from the system.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. Is that form that we can put in as a recommendation to
the committee \-- to the FCC? Any discussions on that?

(No response.)

MS. ROOKER: Okay. Thank you, Matt.

Larry.

MR. GOLDBERG: Larry Goldberg, WGBH.

I\'m not sure if it\'s okay to skip ahead slightly to a recommendation
based on some of Pam\'s presentation.

MS. ROOKER: Absolutely. We are \-- actually, I think we are covering the
whole spectrum right now.

MR. GOLDBERG: Okay.

MS. ROOKER: Because we\'re running out of time.

MR. GOLDBERG: When the captioning, emergency captioning rules or access
for deaf and hard of hearing people were instituted we, among others,
recommended that we do not rely on closed captioning because, (a) not
everyone has or knows about closed captioning; and (b) the captioning
power might be out at the agency.

Similar issue to what Dave brought up for using the SAP channel for
describing on-screen information provided to visually impaired people.

I think it\'s time to take another look at that to study how these
technologies which may be more proliferated and need to look at that
along with consumer electronics manufacturers because there is a wealth
of opportunities in using the SAP channel in alternate ways than we use
for describing entertaining where you could have a running commentary of
what\'s going on screen for blind folks.

Similarly, using closed captioning, it\'s tough to rely on that today,
but I think times are changing since then.

MS. ROOKER: So you are recommending that we now have to rely on closed
captioning.

MR. GOLDBERG: I would say it\'s time to revisit the question as to
whether the closed captioning and the SAP channel could be utilized in
emergency situations.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. Is that something that is acceptable as a
recommendation?

(No response.)

MS. ROOKER: Okay. Thank you, Larry.

Susan Palmer has \-- wait a minute. Susan, are you going to speak to
that? Okay, thank you.

MS. PALMER: Okay, this is not necessarily Cingular Wireless\'s position
but mine as a consumer.

MS. ROOKER: Absolutely.

MS. PALMER: I think if we can also look at the need, if there is
supporting need for things on the electronic side like Larry is getting
to in terms of, for example, Panasonic, I know, has on their remotes a
SAP button, so that you can toggle to that. And if we are looking at
alternate reasons or means for using SAP, for example, let\'s say there
is an emergency notification, there is a beep, you could toggle to that
and not only get information described verbally, but it could be both
verbally and multiple languages, so you are dealing with not only just
the issue of information in spoken English so that if you are illiterate
or you can\'t see to get that information, but you have the option for
doing other things as well.

MS. ROOKER: Okay, thank you, and I think that would be \-- we can add
that to our recommendations.

Okay, we are going to limit ourselves to two more. Nancy and then Paul.
Okay, Nancy, Nancy Linke-Ellis.

MS. LINKE-ELLIS: Very briefly, and I\'m not quite sure how it works, but
I do know that all of the relay services have gotten together so that
all you have to do is dial 7-1-1 to get a relay call to anyone in the
United States.

I recommend that we look at the model and how they created this
infrastructure and see if there is way we can apply it to public safety.

MS. ROOKER: A good suggestion. Do we have consensus on that?

(No response.)

MS. ROOKER: Great. Now, we will move on \-- Susan, if you have a comment
on that? You can make a comment on it, then we are going on to the next
suggestion.

MS. PALMER: I think it may be a different issue because of jurisdiction.
7-1-1 was something that was done federally. The PSAP and emergency
things are done at a local level, so I don\'t think it would be
appropriate in this case, only locally.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. We will have to take that into consideration in
thinking about this.

Paul.

MR. SCHROEDER: Paul Schroeder.

MS. ROOKER: Paul Schroeder.

MR. SCHROEDER: I want to just add one thing to Larry\'s comment, that it
strikes me that the other place to look at these issues is in digital
television area, which the Commission really did not look at anyway, but
it certainly does need to be looked at for emergency purposes.

MS. ROOKER: And can we add that to what Larry was mentioning in previous
discussion that we include digital?

(No response.)

MS. ROOKER: Okay, thank you so much.

I am afraid that we have just about run \-- do we have \-- if you
promise me you will be back here in five minutes, I will let Clayton \--
the pressure is on you, Clayton.

MR. BOWEN: Thank you, Shirley. Clay Bowen, National Association of State
Relay Administration.

In Pam\'s presentation, she gave the example on September 11th that even
though the Maryland relay center was closed they successfully
transferred their traffic to other relay provider centers in this
section of the country.

While that was successful, that may or may not be true for other relay
centers.

Sprint is the provider for Maryland and they have several relay centers
throughout the country. There are states, there are relay providers that
serve maybe only one state or just a very few states. If that particular
state had gone down, there may not have been in place to transfer that
traffic.

I am wondering if we need to consider a recommendation that the FCC look
at if there are contingency plans for individual relay providers or
between relay providers that in such situations where a state served by
one relay provider or a relay provider serving two or three states, if
there is adequate backup in a situation where a governor closed that
state, or if that state was unable to function because of a national
emergency.

MS. ROOKER: I think that is an excellent suggestion. Do we have any
problems with that or may we make that part of our recommendations?

(No response.)

MS. ROOKER: Okay. I\'m sorry to cut this off. It\'s been extraordinarily
interesting, but we have got to run. You have got five minutes, get back
here.

(Whereupon, a recess was taken.)

MS. ROOKER: Please. It\'s really important because we have got 1966 in
front of us.

Thank you. Please. I am sorry to cut you short and I know it\'s
interesting and great to talk to people but we really do need to get
back to our agenda.

And starting us off is that person that I aged rapidly, is Pam Gregory
who is Chief of the Disability Rights Office, Consumer Information
Bureau, and I think what I didn\'t tell you before is she is a certified
rehabilitation counselor, and she also studied in Kenya. I read bios.
What can I say?

Please, Pam is about to start the program. We have to get back to work.

MS. GREGORY: Okay, I\'m going to go ahead and start because I don\'t
want Shirley to add any more years onto my life.

(Laughter.)

MS. GREGORY: It\'s already been stressful enough.

MS. ROOKER: You can\'t afford it.

MS. GREGORY: That\'s right. Although Mark did raise a good issue. I
might be able to retire earlier if we keep on going.

(Laughter.)

MS. GREGORY: So it does bring some joy to me.

I\'m going to introduce some speakers on the complaint process, but
before I do I just want to take an opportunity to talk a little bit
about the Disability Rights Office because I know that people,
especially in the disability community, have had questions about what\'s
going on in DRO. Some people have been afraid, some people have just
been curious, and I want to reassure people that the Disability Rights
Office not going away. We are here to stay. We are going to be here
hopefully until I retire, depending on whenever Shirley decides I need
to retire. But we are not going away. We are here to stay.

And in addition to that, we have got some really great news in that we
are getting one senior attorney from the Common Carrier Bureau who is
actually a greater writer and very exited to be working on disability
policy.

And in addition to this wonderful attorney, we are also going to be able
to able to bring on five other attorneys into the Disability Rights
Office. That\'s a huge deal.

(Applause.)

MS. GREGORY: It\'s a huge deal. Their names are Merrill Ico. For those
of you that know Merrill Ico, that\'s right, this poor woman works so
hard. I mean, she ended up having to take a four-month off period. She
worked so hard really because she was the only attorney working. No,
she\'s not coming back. Believe me. We did her in.

(Laughter.)

MS. GREGORY: But she actually still does follow the issues. So we are
here to day. Some of the people in the Disability Rights Office are
going to be going to other parts of the Consumer Information Bureau. For
example, we have a complaints, consumer complaints component, and I
don\'t want to steal anyone\'s thunder but we are going to have someone
from the Disability Rights Office go to that area so they will be able
to not only educate everyone there about the disability complaints, the
disability rules, and have interaction with persons with disabilities,
but also we can learn about some of the teeth in the enforcement process
when we are looking at disability complaints.

On the other side of the bureau we are going to be having a real
serious, a real professional outreaching education campaign, and we are
going to learn disability as a team to that part of the bureau, and
it\'s something I think will work out very well.

Susan Perrin, over there with Martha Conti, has developed \-- is working
on some disability outreach plans, and I am sure she will becoming and
presenting to the CDTAC at some point, asking for input on how to
educate and reach every single consumer.

One thing I do want to mention is that we do feel in the Disability
Rights Office that we have a problem, that there is a problem with
complaints in terms of complaints from the disability community.

I spoke with Brenda Patak during the break, and she was saying, you
know, we do know that there were complaints relating to September 11th,
and we would love to get them. We had one person come to the Commission
and say that she had a stack this high of consumer complaints relating
to September 11th. We haven\'t seen any of them. We would love to have
them.

So if the CDTAC has any ideas on how we can inform consumers that we are
here to take complaints, that people out there have rights, and we do
have responsibilities, we would love to learn about that.

Now, I\'m going to introduce you to Thomas Wyatt, and he has been here
since 1966.

(Laughter.)

MS. GREGORY: No, his bio is in there, but I do want to say something
about Thomas Wyatt. Thomas Wyatt was part of the Section 255 team. In
fact, he wrote the enforcement component of the Section 255 rules. He is
a wonderful guy. He is a beautiful writer. He took a course at Trace
with Dr. Brigbinder Hyden for a week with me, and he is so committed to
disability issues, and he is a wonderful man, so we are really lucky to
have him here at the Commission.

(Applause.)

MR. WYATT: Well, I feel great. Pam just lowered my age.

(Laughter.)

MR. WYATT: I am really happy to be here because I really want to talk
about the complaint process, because it\'s a process that works well for
consumers, and I will give you some examples a little bit later, but we
did a recent internal survey that showed that approximately 80 percent
of our common carrier consumer complaints were a resolved to the
satisfaction of consumers, which means the consumers were satisfied with
the result they received from the company. I think that\'s a great
indicator of the value of the process.

Now, as Pam alluded to, there are some issues we have, the consumers
have about people that may not know about the process and how it works,
so I am going to talk to you a little bit about how the process works.

And probably the most important thing I\'ll say right off the bat is
that although the process works well for consumers, we are always
looking for ways to make it work better. And you are going to hear from
Margaret Egler in a few minutes about an NPRN we have underway to
consider some technology changes to the process, and we really want
people, consumers, consumer groups as interested to come in and give us
idea or suggestions for making it even better.

Now, in discussion the complaint process, there are probably two key
terms that most of you are probably familiar with to take from the
Section 255 area: accessibility and usability. We really want the
process to be accessible and usable for our consumers.

Currently, we have about eight people who are committed to resolving the
formal complaints. These individuals are located in our Gettysburg,
Pennsylvania office and here at headquarters. And we have some pretty
major upgrades underway that are designed to make these two locations
interact better, and we would really like to get a point where we have
one virtual consumer center, so all these people are working together
for a common cause.

Currently, these staff members, we call the consumer advocacy and
mediation specialists, our CAMs. These people are trained and equipped
to receive and handle just about any type of complaint. They also have
\-- we have support staff within the bureau, for example, if a CAM needs
some special expertise or some assistance in resolving the complaint,
there are people available to assist them in resolving tough issues. We
call these \-- this is our special escalations team. In addition, the
CAMs work pretty frequently with other bureau and offices if they need
special expertise on a particular matter.

Generally, when complaints are received, and I should say off the bat
that complaints can come into us in practically any form or fashion. For
example, if a consumer wanted to file a complaint in writing, we would
receive it and process that. If a consumer wanted to send us an e-mail
complaint, we would receive and process that. If a consumer wanted to
pick up the phone and call us, we would take that complaint, take that
information and reduce it to a form that we could send it to the company
involved.

So we really are accessible. That\'s why I wanted to emphasis that term.
The goal is to make it even more accessible, and part of the concern Pat
alluded to earlier is that we just \-- we have a sense that some people
may not be aware of the process because we don\'t get a lot of
complaints from the disability community at large. That is something
that we would like to \-- we would like to understand why, and maybe
working with individuals to figure out if we can fix that because we
really want the process to be accessible, and certainly usable.

And the usable part of it is \-- we will certainly focus on that as
well. We are trying to make sure our CAMs are trained and equipped to
deal with any type of consumer complaint that is brought to the
Commission.

There are going to be complaints that don\'t lend themselves to an
informal resolution, and maybe that\'s the point I should make right now
is that the consumer complaint process is really geared towards
producing a negotiated solution between the consumer and the company,
something geared towards producing result on the merits of complaints.

I think that may be one of the misconceptions about the consumer
complaint process that many consumers sometimes have. They feel that if
they file a complaint, then it will result in a written decision on the
merits of legal or factual issues by the Commission.

That is not what the complaint process is designed for. It was really
designed to produce and facilitate some kind of solution which is why we
have a pretty good record in terms of resolving it for consumers. If we
have \-- if we got our lawyers involved in pursuing the complaint
process, the companies would get their lawyers involved, and we all know
what would happen. The consumer would be an afterthought at the end. So
the government should really facilitate a process that allows the
consumers to get some kind of satisfaction for a problem.

We do a really good job of that, and you know, the 80 percent success
rate is really a good indicator. We would like to be 100 percent,
frankly. And so we are really working to that end.

And I mentioned that we have technology changes underway that we think
will make the process even more accessible and work even faster for
consumers. And so we are really excited about that.

And to give you a few more specifics about how it actually works, let\'s
say a consumer files a complaint, an e-mail complaint. The goal is to
take that complaint and review it. If it contains sufficient
information, to get it into the hands of the company within 10 days. So
that\'s our goal and I think in most cases we are meeting that.

If someone files a complaint by any means, the goal is to get it to the
company within 10 days, and the company is typically given 30 days to
try to resolve or answer the complaint. We can shorten that time frame
if needed. For example, if a CAM thinks there is an issue involving
health or safety, we will require the company to respond maybe in 10
days, if not less. So the process is somewhat flexible, as it should be.
It\'s really important that we can accommodate particular needs of an
individual consumer.

And I should say this because I know that there are some company
representatives here, and this has been my experience throughout the
years. The companies have been very good at working with us in making
sure the process works in a very fair and efficient way for consumers.
And I know personally, I have picked up the phone with an informal
complaint and called the company rep, and I have gotten a very quick
response, a very meaningful response to the complaint, and that\'s
something that we really appreciate from the industry. We would like to
continue that and every indication is that we will continue that. So we
are really excited about that.

There are going to be some changes, and there are going to be some
changes that are really geared towards the accessibility point I
mentioned earlier. So we want to make sure that the process is
accessible because we certainly want more consumers to use it. That\'s
why I keep going back to the point that Pam made because, frankly, we
have heard anecdotally that there are a lot of complaints, a lot of
concerns, but we just don\'t see them. And so we would like to figure
out ways that we could facilitate that process.

If the committee has ideas about how we can \-- how we can outreach and
make the process more accessible to the disabilities groups, we want to
hear that.

I know that we have fairly limited time this morning but I wanted to
talk really generally about the process and say that it is a good
process. I have worked with it since 1966 \-- for a very long, and I
have seen it work in really good ways for our consumers. I have seen
some very tough issues that have been resolved. I have seen companies
take actions to benefit consumers without any legal compulsion. I think
that\'s really a key component of the process.

The companies do it with us because they want to do it and not because
there is \-- well, sometimes there is a legal compulsion, but it\'s not
always a question of legal compulsion. There is an interest in resolving
the issue for the consumer to the benefit of the consumer, and that\'s a
process that I think is a wonderful process, and we want more consumers
to take advantage of it. We would like it to work even better.

So with all that said, I will \-- yes?

MR. McELDOWNEY: Yes, I have a question.

One of the concerns I have in the past with the complaint bureau was
that it was not accessible to people who spoke languages other than
English. In the past, I have heard there is one woman who spoke Spanish,
but then \-- which is on maternity\'s leave, there was no one.

So I guess the question I am having is what capabilities do you all now
have in Spanish and Asian languages?

MR. WYATT: Well, with respect to Spanish languages, I know that we have
\-- we have recently hired three Spanish-speaking CAMs, and that again
the CAMs are the consumer advocacy mediation specialist I was referring
to earlier. And we recognized that there was a deficiency there, and so
we have made a conscious effort to try to recruit and bring more
Spanish-speaking CAMs in.

Frankly, we are also looking at other areas to bring other staff that
would assist with other languages. We are going to do that as well.

So, yes, we are aware of that. That is something we want to address and
will address on a going forward basis.

MS. BATTAT: I have a question. In the handling of a complaint that comes
in under Section 255, is a consumer directed to the industry, the
company, and it gets resolved successfully by the company, offering the
consumer an alternate product. It seems to me that I \-- I thought that
the complaint process is a way to move enforcement of 255 along. What it
means in fact in that situation, and this has happened, I have heard
accounts of this, where they are given an alternate product, but we\'re
not really moving on the fact that the product that they are complaining
about is not accessible nor usable.

My question is, is there any attempt by the FCC to then look at the
product that the original complaint was made about, and ask the company
to demonstrate that when they were designing that product that they in
fact were trying to make it accessible and usable?

MR. WYATT: I think I can answer at least part of that.

Now, what we do, and we are \-- this part of the technology changes that
we have on the way. We really put a lot of emphasis on tracking
complaints, and to look for trends and patterns.

For example, if we see that issue with respect to a particular company,
that\'s an issue that we flag. We will be talking to our enforcement
bureau colleagues about things that we can do to maybe address it. So
the plan is to really monitor and track complaints, and not allow
companies to get away with quick fixes that might not address other
clients\' concerns.

So that the process is structured so that we can monitor and track those
types of complaints, and raise them within the enforcement bureau if
needed to address the issue.

In terms of the latter part of your question, you were referring to
enforcement action to require compliance, that is something that we
really go to the enforcement bureau about. We defer to them on
enforcement initiatives, not only to facilitate resolutions and add to
track the complaints and bring those sorts of issues to the enforcement
bureau\'s attention, and we will continue to work with them. And the
goal will be to come up with maximum compliance.

I mean, if there is \-- Pam mentioned earlier we have a great
relationship \-- when I say \"we,\" I mean those of on the front end of
processing the complaints have a great relationship with DRO. We
interact a lot. We share information. And oftentimes we rely on DRO to
give us some guidance on what we should do with a particular complaint,
whether it\'s elevated to a higher level or approach the enforcement
bureau about some possible enforcement action.

So the process is set up so that we can flag and address those types of
issues.

MS. BATTAT: But it seems to me if the consumer is satisfied by this as a
successful outcome, and there wouldn\'t be any follow up.

MR. WYATT: But this is something we can go back to Pam about. Pam
mentioned that I worked on the 255 order, and one thing we emphasize in
the order is that we would address complaints, the fact that a complaint
might have been resolved to the satisfaction of the individual consumer
doesn\'t necessary mean that company would be off the hook. So we will
monitor.

If we get \-- on an individual case basis, you are probably right. If
the consumer is satisfied, and there are no other complaints, it\'s
unlikely that we are going to elevate that to an enforcement issue.

But if that consumer is satisfied and there are dozens of other
consumers who are not, I mean, that tells us there is still a problem
that we need to address, and that would be the approach we would follow.

MS. BRUNS: This is Andrea with \--

MS. PALMER: You know, I didn\'t see you.

MS. ROOKER: Kathleen.

MS. PALMER: I wondered in the chain of the procedure once you have
turned the complaint over to the company for the 10 or 30 names or
whatever, how do you track what happens then? And how do you make that
determination that a complaint has either been resolved or satisfied?

My concern is very much like Paula\'s, that if you never hear from that
consumer again, do you assume that they have been satisfied, or that the
complaint has been resolved?

MR. WYATT: The way the process works, when a company is required to
respond, they have to automatically send a copy of their response to the
consumer and to us.

Now, our CAMs will review that response, and oftentimes it will be clear
from the response that the complaint has been satisfied. If there is any
question, the CAMs will pick up the phone or e-mail and contact the
consumer to confirm that there has been a satisfactory solution.

If the consumer says, no, this is not what I\'ve asked for, I am really
not happy, oftentimes we will go back to the company, and that\'s the
mediation aspect of the process. The CAMs are trained to discern the
consumer\'s level of satisfaction and to seek further redress, if
necessary, on behalf of the consumer. So it\'s a very interactive,
collective process.

MS. PALMER: Is that a new process? Because as I said at a previous
meeting, in the end of 1999, and the year 2000, my husband and I alone
filed four written complaints with the FCC, and he received a postcard
on one acknowledging the FCC receipt. The other three, we never heard
from anybody. And I know there was a backlog. And so when the year-end
report for CIB for the year 2000 said that the backlog had been cleaned
up, I wasn\'t sure if I was part of the cleanup, because you never heard
from us again.

Did someone conclude that our complaint had been resolved, or that the
carriers sent you what they told you they sent us? Certainly we never
heard from anyone again.

MR. WYATT: Well, the only thing I could say about that would be
speculation because I don\'t know the specific complaints.

I can tell you the way the process is designed now, and I regret that it
wasn\'t designed that way at the time of your complaints.

MS. PALMER: This is new?

MR. WYATT: Well, it\'s new in the sense \-- not new in the sense that
the rules have changed. But in terms of how correct we are with the
complaints certainly has changed. We are providing better training to
the CAMs to ensure that they can be corrected. They can identify
complaints that are not resolved, and to recommend further actions
needed.

And, frankly, the backlog did present some problems in responding to
individual complaints. But the backlog has long since been resolved, and
we really on a going forward basis we are determining to make sure that
the consumers are getting satisfaction to the complaint process, or at
least getting some feedback on where their complaint stands.

For example, now when a consumer wants a status of their complaint, they
can call the call center toll free, and they should be able to get a
status report right away about the complaint.

So we try to make sure there are some things in place so that we can
track and monitor so the consumers aren\'t left in the lurch wondering
about what the Commission is doing or not doing with the complaint.

But it\'s an ongoing process and that\'s why we really want suggestions
and ideas for improving it. We don\'t want to hear stories like that.

And speaking of stories, before our bureau chief leaves I want to tell a
story about \-- give you an idea about how important you are. He
mentioned at his presentation earlier that he is a very busy man. I have
to tell you he\'s not so busy he can\'t check to see how well the
complaint process is working. He \-- from outside the Commission he has
sent a couple of e-mails throughout consumer centers to elicit a
response. And after that he brought me into his office and he gave me
some good news and bad news.

The good news was he got a pretty quick response. It was, I think, a
two-day turnaround in one case, and I think a one-day turnaround in the
other.

The bad news was that the response wasn\'t as precise as we would like
it to be, meaning that the consumer probably wasn\'t given the kind of
precise information for that particular e-mail that we would have wanted
to required or expected of them.

So that\'s a training issue, of course. Margaret, I keep looking at
Margaret because she is one of our principal trainers in the bureau. She
and I spent a lot of time working with the CAMs, make sure they have
current information about Commission requirements and policies so they
can pass that along to consumers.

So you know, we recognize that we have a ways to go which is why it\'s
great to talk to you all today because if you have any ideas or
suggestions on how we can improve the precess, and make sure that you
and your husband don\'t have to wait or wonder about what happened to
your complaint, that\'s the type of thing we want to accomplish.

MS. ROOKER: We have a couple of questions here. Andrea, then Bob, then
Paul, and then Larry, and then we are going to go. Oh, gosh, we have got
to get some people. Can I \-- Julie, you haven\'t a questions this
morning. We want to hear from you.

MS. CARROLL: Thank you. We hear a great deal from consumers with
disabilities that they are very dissatisfied with the lack of progress
that has been made under Section 255. And as I am hearing you describing
the complaint process, I am wondering if there isn\'t some way to get
outside the box and improve enforcement by looking beyond just the
complaints that the FCC is getting.

There are lots of reasons why consumers don\'t complaint, and I think
one of the reasons is that consumers under the Telecommunications Act
don\'t always understand what it is they can complain about. It can be a
very complicated process, and understanding just the regulations for
consumers can be very daunting.

The fact that you said you look at trends to determine what companies
that you might need to work with, and yet you are getting a very low
volume of complaints says to me we might not be moving along the way
that we could be if we took some alternative approaches.

MR. WYATT: Well, those are very good points, and again, what we are
trying to do is identify better ways about reaching out to consumers,
and helping them to understand just what their rights are with respect
to complaining and what they can expect in the complaint process.

To the extent that consumers have viewed that complaint process as not
particularly useful, then we want to change that perception. That means
improving the way we outreach and the information that we provide.

So, yeah, I think you made a very good point. We want to work with the
companies and the consumer groups and consumers to figure out better
ways of making the process more meaningful to consumers.

MS. ROOKER: Just one quick \-- let me make a point. Coming around the
room is a copy of the NRIC charter and there are going to be Braille
copies that are coming shortly. It just takes a little more time to make
them, but they will be available for our members who need the Braille
copies. Sorry to interrupt.

I believe next in the order of business of Andrea had a question.

MS. WILLIAMS: Well, a comment and a question.

First of all, we work very closely with the Thomas and the wireless
industry, CTIA, in terms of service quality issues. And under service
question, disability or accessibility issues, service quality across the
board. And I know that one of the \-- since we \-- we have taken a
proactive approach, and I am wondering if this can be done with other
industries as well in terms of now that \-- and I can assure you that
the Commission are \-- they do track the complaints that come in.

We have set up a mechanism, what I call our early warning system, with
respect to the consumer information bureau. And basically what that is
is that if CIB, for example, Thomas, sees spikes in certain types of
complaints, he gives me a call. We have established an ad hoc service
quality group within our trade association, and we then can take care of
things before they really become a major problem.

And I think we have found that this works very, very well on the front
end. Thomas, I am very, very glad to hear that we will now get
complaints within 10 days because one of our concerns is we had, the
wireless industry, was that our complaints, our customers\' issues were
sitting over at the Commission, and if you know anything about wireless,
subscribers churn. They move very quickly. And 30 days in the wireless
world is unacceptable time frame because we can\'t take care of the
complaint.

This is going to be \-- I just applaud you because you know what this is
going to mean to my members is that they are going to be able to get to
their customers, resolve the issue much sooner rather than having an
angry subscriber moving.

But I was wondering is there a way that we can sort of have an early
warning system set up, not just for wireless, but wire line, you know,
common carrier, broadcast?

MR. WYATT: Well, I think Dave talked a little bit about the
reorganization, and we will have a new unit in the bureau that \-- in
the bureau\'s policy division \-- that will be devoted to tracking
trends and provide that sort of information. I can\'t say at this point
just what it will look like, but the plan is to have more people
dedicated to reviewing complaints and inquiries, the stats, and
determining trends and certainly providing early warning signals to the
other Commission offices.

Now, we would imagine that the goal would be to provide that to the
industry as well because I know in my experience, as Andrea alluded to,
the sooner we get the complaint to the company the sooner it\'s
resolved.

And again, I can\'t say enough about the 80 percent resolution,
satisfactory resolution rate that we found in our informal survey.

So, yeah, I think it\'s important for us to really be fast about getting
the complaints to the companies, and getting information back about how
\-- the types of complaints that we are reviewing, particularly those
that raise really, really troublesome and important issues.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you. Let\'s go to Paul Schroeder.

MR. SCHROEDER: Thanks. I want to follow on Julie\'s question.

I think expectation is part of the problem, and so there is a part of
the Commission rules, I think it\'s 623, and it says the Commission on
its own action can take such action as necessary to enforce this act,
something like that. You know the part I\'m talking about?

MR. WYATT: Yes.

MS. ROOKER: Under what circumstances, and I see that you haven\'t done
that on 255, but if you have, it would be interesting to know that, what
circumstances might that be contemplated because I suspect that one
reason why you won\'t hear consumer complaints in a large swath of areas
in telecom is just that it seemed utterly futile since there are so few
choices and so few expectations of accessibility.

And I\'m not being critical here just to be critical. I mean, I think
it\'s just the reality that people do use this stuff and they use it
effectively within the limits of their disabilities, and their abilities
to interact with the particular instruments involved.

But the fact is that there is still a lot of work to be done on
accessibility. So no one is going to complain if they don\'t expect that
there is really an outcome that\'s going to be beneficial if they
haven\'t seen what an access improvement would look like.

So given that, under what conditions would the Commission contemplate or
make action on its own, looking at a trend and saying, look, we are not
seeing action in this area?

MR. WYATT: Well, I don\'t know that I can answer that very directly
because there are a number of factors that would go into a decision for
the Commission on its own emotion pursue an enforcement action. I don\'t
think I am really qualified when those circumstances might arise.

But I can tell you that we would look for compliance, and if it\'s clear
based on the company response and the complaint that there is a
significance compliance issue, then we would look to pursue that.

If I pursue that, it wouldn\'t necessarily mean a full proceeding, but
it could be more interaction or intervention by the staff.

The complaint process is really geared towards facilitating negotiation
between the consumer and the company. And the staff, how it is poised,
if it identifies a case where there seems to be some real compliance
problem on the part of the company, and the staff is poised to
intervene, asks for additional information, make recommendations, really
try to promote compliance of the requirements, if that fails then there
are some formal mechanisms at the Commission.

Also, our enforcement bureau is poised to work with us if we identify a
compliance problem that is not being addressed by the company. Then we
would pull them in and our Disabilities Rights Office would also have
some input in terms of the severity of the problem and how we might best
approach it to effect more compliance.

So it\'s difficult to say, to give you examples of what might trigger
the on our own emotion part of that rule. But I can tell you that we are
\-- we will be proactive in looking at compliance problems, and raising
those if we need to.

MS. ROOKER: Okay, thank you.

I think we will take two more questions. Looking to this side of the
room, Brenda, I think you had a question, and then we will go to Bob if
that\'s okay.

MS. BATTAT: If I could follow up. I think I saw consumer organizations
here where I say this is the tip of the iceberg. There are complaints
when they come to us. Is it feasible that they can be channeled to you
from consumer organizations?

I mean, we try hard to education consumers through our various media
outlet of how to complaint. We look to your page in terms of how to
complain, but nonetheless the complaint, the complaints come into us.

Is it acceptable that we just channel them over to you rather than go
back and say you have to re-complain?

MR. WYATT: Sure, it\'s acceptable, and we should talk more about how
that would work in practice because I notice that in order to make the
process successful if so channeling it from your organization, channel
some of the complaints, we would be more than happy to accept them.

I think I want to emphasize though that the process is really
facilitating a solution for the consumers. So we want to do the
channeling in a way that consumers will benefit. We don\'t want
complaints to get lost in a morass of bureaucracy by the sheer numbers.
We don\'t want really important issues to get lost in the sheer numbers
of complaints. But I want to facilitate accessibility to the process as
best we can.

So if you have some ideas of channeling complaints through
organizations, we would like to hear those, and work with the
organizations because we have some technology systems underway, and how
we set those systems into place will depend on how we need to address or
how we need to receive the complaints. So we would be more than happy to
work with any groups in terms of facilitating our receipt of complaints.

But again, I think I have to emphasize our goal is to make sure that we
can address them in a meaningful way for consumers. So as long as we can
deal individually with the consumers, then we don\'t particularly care
how they come to us.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. Bob. We will take two more questions. Jeff had his
hand up. Bob.

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: A quick \-- Bob Chrostowski, TIA. A quick question.

The proposed rules regarding unified system, was that under an NPRN or?

MR. WYATT: Yes, it is.

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: It is. And is active at this time?

MR. WYATT: I\'m sorry?

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: It\'s active at this time, it\'s open at this time?

MR. WYATT: Yes, it is.

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: Okay, thank you.

MR. WYATT: And Margaret might be able to give you some specifics in
terms of \-- I don\'t know whether we have any dates, but I \--

MS. ENGLE: (Not on microphone.)

MR. WYATT: We have. Okay.

MS. ROOKER: Just want to let you know that we have been asked to provide
a glossary of abbreviations and terms that some of us don\'t really
know, and we will work on getting something out to you before the next
meeting.

All right, Jeff.

MR. KRAMER: Jeff Kramer with AARP.

My question is, what percentage of the complaints you get are complaints
that are made by a consumer to you initially or are they complaints that
come to you after they have tried to rectify the situation through
carriers?

MR. WYATT: I don\'t have any precise numbers. That\'s something I can
look to see if we have that. But I do know that we hear often from
consumers who have gone to the company, and said, well, I haven\'t been
able to resolve it. We also hear from consumers who say that, well, I
know that we didn\'t get any satisfaction at the company so I\'m coming
to you, and nor do I think I should have to go to the company to get
some satisfaction here.

So I think we do know from some who have gone there first, to the
companies first, and from consumers directly, and don\'t have any
precise data. But it\'s something that we \-- we certainly encourage
consumers to go to the companies because that\'s usually where the
resolution takes place, but we don\'t require consumers, and that\'s
something that we really have been trying to emphasize lately, that by
no means is a consumer required to go to the company before the consumer
comes to us, and that\'s something that I think there was a perception
on the part of some that they had to go the companies first, and I want
to clarify that. There is no requirement that the consumer go to the
company before they come to us.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you so much. I think you can tell that there has been
a great deal of interest. Thank you.

(Applause.)

MS. ROOKER: Maybe I should introduce \-- is this Jenifer?

MS. SIMPSON: Yes.

MS. ROOKER: Hi, Jenifer. Jenifer Simpson is joining us. She is the
telecommunications accessibility specialist with the Disability Rights
Office. So thank you, Jenifer.

MS. SIMPSON: Good morning, everybody. I am happy to be here and talk
some more about complaints and inquiries. Thomas told you a lot about
sort of the general overview, but he didn\'t mention how many complaints
come in and that\'s tens of thousands a month.

But what I am going to talk to you about are the disability inquiries
and complaints that come in.

Slide, please.

What we have, of course, is a snapshot of the last six months of last
year of all the disability complaints and inquiries that came in.

The first slide, please.

The report is there for July 1 through December 31. That\'s third and
fourth quarter last year. We only had 636 inquiries, and 65 complaints
by people with disabilities or that were specifically related to the
disability mandates in the Telecommunications Act. That\'s a total of
701 in six months.

As you can see, 65 complaint is, you know, basically one-tenth of the
overall volume. And when we talk about complaints and inquiries, we are
talking about two different kinds of things.

Inquiries are those very general complaints that we get like why can\'t
they do something. A complaint that is specific and get counted as a
complaint is a complaint against a company and a particular access
barrier is being mentioned.

We break down these complains \-- well, go back to the slide, please \--
into three categories. It\'s telephony there is television and there is
other. In telephony, we cover Section 225, which is really services, and
Section 255, which is access, equipment and services. We also break it
out by wireless and wire line.

We also have television-related complaints which are under Section 305,
and that\'s closed caption and access to emergency information, as well
as video description.

Other is anything else you might ask us concerning disability. And I\'m
going to go into all these categories quite specifically for you.

Next slide, please.

That\'s a pie chart of how this breaks out. As you can see, the vast
majority of the disability-related complaints are telephony, 54 percent;
television are 14 percent; the other category about 32 percent; splits
out into 26 percent general information, and non-FCC, those are
referrals out to other agencies. Very often those are ADA- interrelated,
but I will into specifically what these different categories are all
about.

Next slide, please.

Telephony, wire line, we had 318 complaints and inquiries. This is all
the stuff we get under relay services, speech to speech, video relay
services. There were 202 of these in relay services, 116 under Section
255. And I will go into Section 255 stuff later. I\'m just summarizing
telephony now, just wire line. Two hundred and seventy-nine inquiries,
39 complaints.

Next slide, please.

Wireless, we have 79 that were disability-related. Again it\'s broken
out by the two categories under the statute, Section 225, which is the
relay services, and Section 255, and you can see how that breaks out.
Section 255, this is 73; relay service complaints involving wireless
issues were only six. Actually, that\'s complaints and inquiries. The
overall summary in this category of wireless is inquires 75, complaints
22.

Next slide, please.

Television, these are the complaints and inquiries about television
access, closed captioning access refers to the information video
description, 85 inquires, 14 complaints, and this breaks out to 42 that
were broadcast-related, and 57 cable-related.

And by the way, when I count complaints and inquiries around satellite
issues, that\'s included in cable.

Next slide.

People tell us who they are when they contact us, and it\'s people with
disabilities and then family members. it\'s attorneys representing the
companies. It\'s state relay service administrators, manufacturers,
engineers, software developers, tele company staff, utility commissions,
cable authorities, disability services organizations, small business
orders, federal and state agency staff, and a lot of researchers. And we
have from all the states and the islands. We have heard from somebody in
that six-month period just about from every state.

We also get a lot of inquiries from foreigners because they know what
the U.S. has is the leader with rules on disability access. And in that
six-month period, we heard from Canada, Denmark, Spain and the United
Kingdom.

I can tell you we still get lots of complaints from Australia \-- well,
actually it\'s more concerns or inquiries about what we are up to, most
of the European countries and all over the world.

Let me tell you a little bit more about disability receipts. The
disabilities involved, deaf, hard of hearing, blind, low vision, speech
disabilities, learning disabilities, cerebral palsy, mental retardation,
brain injury, dyslexia, Lou Gehrig\'s disease, Alzheimers, mental
illness, autism, stuttering and anything else. This is what people tell
us. We don\'t ask. It\'s what you tell us in the complaint. And a lot of
these complaints are by a person on behalf of another person. They will
say, you know, I am asking about something on behalf of someone with a
disability.

We also hear from a lot of elderly person, and it really turns out to be
a disability inquiry or complaint. We also hear from disabled veterans.

I\'m going to break down into what the Section 255 complaints and
inquiries are all about. On the left is the pie chart which shows the
overall receipts. The left piece was 54 and on the right-hand you can
see how that 54 percent breaks out. It\'s pretty much an even split
between Section 255 and Section 225, which is really services this type
of complaint, relay services complaints that we have. This both wireless
and wire line.

Next slide, please.

I just want to emphasize that the Section 255 receipts we get, which is
complaints and inquiries, is only 20 percent, 27 percent of what we get
from the Disability Rights Office, less than a third, and that was 155
inquiries and 34 complaints. Complaints from them are things that name
specific companies, specific access barriers. Ninety-five of these were
equipment-related, and 94 were services-related. So it\'s kind of an
even split in Section 255 whether it\'s equipment or services-related.

Of this, we only served 13 complaints, that is, to the companies, and
seven of those remain open at this time. I should note the reduced
number.

The complaints that we have served involved issues such as bills and
information and alternate formats; accessible wire line and wireless
phone devices; a paging service; equipment compatibility with TTY;
directory and operator assistance issues; and access to the customer
support centers by companies.

Most of the inquiries are around the point of contact of the company,
either the company doesn\'t know what was this requirement is about or
an individual wants to know who that point of contact is at the company;
or the inquiries are about the rules: what does it mean, what does it
say, how do I get it, you know, that type of thing.

Next slide, please.

This is about relay services, that other half of telephony. The
complaints and inquiries is 30 percent of all of what the Disability
Rights Office received: 181 inquiries, 27 complaints.

We served 20 complaints; two of them still remain open. Most of our
complaints are around two typical issues: carrier of choice with the
relay service, and access to the relay services using 7-1-1 simplified
dialing. In fact, that\'s the majority of the ones I have seen lately.

Inquiries again, all about state point of contact and rules: who do I
call, who do I go to, what does the rule say, anything you can think of
within the rules under relay services.

Closed captioning receipts, the total is only 14 percent of DRO \-- this
is access to television. This includes video description and access to
emergency information; 14 complaints, we served 12. When we served, they
are usually around access for emergency information, blocked captioning.
Remember Pat mentioned that earlier, things blocking each other on the
screen. No captioning for lack of pass-through such as by the satellite
providers, no passing through.

Inquiries about who is responsible, we have people complaining about say
a particular TV channel, but our rules say that we \-- the complaint, or
our responsibility is with the distributor of video programming, and if
the complainant won\'t tell or can\'t tell, he doesn\'t know who it is,
we can\'t serve the complaint.

We\'re going to go into what the other receipts of the Disability Rights
Office are about, and that\'s about 30 percent, and that\'s 205
inquiries and complaints. A lot of these are complaints, but since they
are other, they might be sent off to another federal agency because they
are very likely to be ADA-related, and they really belong to the
Department of Justice, so we kick them over there or we tell the person
where to do; very nicely, of course.

Sometimes these complaints surrounding Section 508 or 504, and it\'s
internal to the FCC. It gets handled to the Section 504 office here at
the FCC, or the Section 508 people. If it\'s an issue around, you know,
access to equipment or services, we might refer them out to a tech ac
program, to an equipment distribution centers, or any other federal
agency we have heard or know about, and I know most of them so you can
be sure if someone asks me I will refer them off right.

Other FCC questions that we get from disability-related folks are around
TCPA, which is the Telecommunications Consumer Protection Act, and those
that we get sent over to the other complaint service group within the
bureau, or it might be involving universal service or in particular
life-line link-up programs of universal service, or they might be a mass
media-related question, radio, something like that.

The final slide I have here is basically about the complaints process in
general, sending by e-mail. As Thomas mentioned, there is lots of
different ways of doing it. You can fax it. You can TTY in. You can
telephone in. You can mail it in, and we will take it in alternate
formats. You know, we have received complaints in Braille.

I will say that in the Disability Rights Office the main method is
electronic e-mail or by phone. Those are the ways we typically get them.

And I want to emphasize that if you are going to do formal complaints
you have to follow the rules, and we are very happy to show you how
those rules work and what that really means because they do differ under
the three sections that we are talking about, Section 225, 255 and 305.
And there are differences, and I would be happy to explain those to you
for a particular complaint. But we do recommend you come to us first to
sort of talk about that issue if you want to take it formally.

I hope that helps you understand what some of the complaint and issues
are about.

MS. ROOKER: I have one question. Shirley Rooker.

It strikes me that you don\'t really receive that many complaints. I am
a little bit surprised. And do you think that\'s because of lack of
information about the service, or that everybody is doing such a good
job that there are no complaints?

MS. SIMPSON: Well, maybe the only complaint is with the rules, I don\'t
know. I think we hear from a lot of people, but there are really not a
\-- they don\'t rise to the level of a surveyable complaint, and I think
that\'s a critical concept that people don\'t really know needs to occur
in order for it to be registered as a complaint here, which is a lot of
information that the person has to provide.

MS. ROOKER: So you do have a lot more communication with people than
what\'s reflected in the statistics you have here? We are only seeing
what you register as a formal complaint?

MS. SIMPSON: That\'s right. No, the inquiries are here counted too, the
inquiries we know about in the Disability Rights Office. This is what I
am counting here. This is just a snapshot of what the Disability Rights
Office has. People at other bureaus making any inquiries and the rest of
the consumer division may be getting inquiries, but this is the snapshot
of what we saw.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. I think we all have questions. Let\'s see, Larry.
Okay, let me get on this side. We haven\'t had anyone from over here.
Claude?

MR. STOUT: Thank you. My name is Claude Stout.

VOICE: Is your microphone on?

MR. STOUT: First of all, Jenifer, I would like to thank you for the
information that you have shared about the number of complaints thus
far, that is, in the last quarter, October through December.

And as word of mouth spreads throughout the deaf and hard-of-hearing
community, most of the populations of the blind community as well, I am
sure that number will improve. But I think the FCC might consider its
efforts of PR.

For example, when you change the web site, the DRO logo changed. And
when we went looking for that information, a customer looking based on
the logo, I was hearing from people who said they weren\'t able to find
it. And in fact I found that at the bottom of the screen there was a
footer-like information indicating Disability Rights Office.

The e-mail address changed as well from Access@FCC.gov to
FCCinfo@FCC.gov, which is all well and good to make those changes, but
please also tell us, the consumers. Let us know, the consumer
organization, so we can get the word out prior to the change rather than
after the fact because that in itself generates confusion, which will
result in a lower number of complaints arriving to the FCC.

So I would encourage you to allow us to be in dialogue when these
changes are being planned so that we can give you feedback and let you
know what ways we have educated our consumers what to look for when they
are trying to log a complaint with you.

Certainly I am not saying that you need our permission. But if you have
our involvement, then you won\'t see a drop in the complaints or a
continuing low number of complaints.

Now, I also would like to ask, when you respond to the complaints do you
keep a log or track how those complaints are resolved? Are those
reported then back in terms of whether it was a letter, a fax, an e-mail
went out?

And the reason I ask is based on an example that came up that might
illustrate this case, there was a consumer who is a university student
who sends a complaint to the FCC, and the complaint had to do with a
lack of captioning for late night programming; that one week there would
be captioning, and then another week there was not. So the student filed
a complaint to the FCC, and the FCC sent a consumer fact sheet on
captioning, which left this person a little at a loss. That wasn\'t a
response to the complaint, and it certainly didn\'t resolve the issue
for them.

So I am wondering what kind of training, what kind of background of the
folks responding to those complaints are provided with.

MS. HARKINS: Judith Harkins. I just wanted to clarify that it was Nick
at Night, not late night, because the FCC might send something if it was
late at night because two to six overnight is exempted, but this was
about Nick at Night, a particular cable channel. I just wanted to
clarify that.

MR. STOUT: Thank you. Thank you, Judy.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you, Claude. I think that\'s probably something we
want to include in our recommendation in a little bit.

Let\'s go to this end of the table. Rich Ellis and then we will have
David, and then we will go across the room.

MR. ELLIS: Just to follow up on what Thomas had said earlier. Rich Ellis
from Verizon.

It\'s helpful to us in the industry to get some idea of the complaints
that are coming in. On the traditional consumer side there is enough
complaints so we have a sense of what the topics are. On the disability
side there are so few complaints coming in to each company that it\'s
kind of hard to get a sense of what should be on our radar screen.

So it would be helpful as to the complaints come in to get an early
warning. I may know of a complaint or two that comes into Verizon, but I
would also like to know what\'s coming into SBC or other companies just
sort in general so that I would know that rail bills is a hot topic, or
cell phone. If I can get a sense of what the hot topics are across the
industry that would help us in each company.

MR. WYATT: Thank you. I want to go back and maybe the question that
Claude had about the student who had filed the complaint and was not
pleased with the response to the fact sheet that was sent back.

I will say that something we are aware of that oftentimes consumers are
not pleased with the information we send back, it\'s something we trying
to improve through training and other devices.

Also, keep in mind that our rules really ask consumers to tell us what
kind of relief they are looking for which really helps to guide and
direct the CAMs as they process the complaint. For example, if a
consumer says I don\'t like XYZ, I mean, it would be fine and well, but
it doesn\'t really tell us what kind of relief the consumer is looking
for. So it\'s really important when the consumers provide us the
complaints that they specify the action they would like to see the
company take or the FCC take.

And I want to also clarify a point, another point that was mentioned
earlier. I think someone referred to informal complaints.

Now, you have to keep in mind that the formal complaint, it has a very
specific connotation in our rules. Formal complaints is a very different
animal than the informal complaint process we are talking about today.
The formal complaints are typically complaints filed by attorneys on
behalf of their clients. There are rigid and formalistic procedures that
we really don\'t \-- we really don\'t secure pursuant to that process,
but we certainly make consumers aware they can use that process if they
want a decision on the merits of the complaint.

But the formal complaint process, the fact that it\'s in a letter
doesn\'t make it a formal complaint. What makes it a formal complaint is
that it is filed pursuant to some very formal procedures under 1.721 of
the Commission\'s rules.

So I wanted to really clarify that when we talk about informal
complaints or formal complaints we don\'t mean complaints that are in
writing as opposed to a complaint that was phoned in.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you for the clarification.

Shelly.

MS. NIXON: How many complaints and inquires do you receive via e-mail?

MR. WYATT: I don\'t have the statistics with me, but I do know we
receive anywhere from two to three thousand inquiries and complaints
every month in e-mail, so we do receive quite a bit of correspondence
via e-mail. And we encourage it because we our CAMs work with e-mail.
It\'s right there on the screen. They can send it around and share it
with other staff. So e-mail does facilitate the process.

MS. ROOKER: We are going to have time for only a couple of more
questions. I apologize for that.

David, I think you had your \-- yes, and then Laura, and then we have to
go out. I\'m sorry.

MR. POEHLMAN: This is Dave Poehlman with the American Council of the
Bind.

A couple of things come to mind. It\'s interesting to note that you
receive most of your correspondence by telephone and e-mail. That might
explain at least some of the reason why inquiry and complaint levels are
\"low.\" Because there are a lot of people who would rather deal with
you in person but they are Omaha and you are in Washington, or
vice-versa.

So we might be able to put some kind of recommendation together that
would facilitate the process of getting these \-- getting these people
to you in such a way that, you know, that they could be heard, and you
know, we can talk about that.

But the question I have is, what differentiates the choice of process
between formal and informal correspondence? Thank you.

MR. WYATT: Really that choice is set out in the Commission\'s rules. A
formal complaint process, we have actually \-- the Commission has a
formal complaint process in its rules that addresses common carrier
complexities, common carrier is filed under Section 208 of the act.

MR. POEHLMAN: I\'m sorry. I need to interrupt just a second.

What I am saying is how do I determine whether or not I should go formal
or informal?

MR. WYATT: Well, the formal complaint process is typically \-- because
of the requirements typically they require the assistance of attorney.
It\'s usually something that is really of paramount importance. For
example, you wouldn\'t want to use the formal complaint process to
challenge a \$10 bill, because there is dollars associated with formal
complaints. I think it\'s \$155 now. So it wouldn\'t be practical to
file a formal complaint and pay a \$155 fee to try to get a \$10 credit
for a phone bill.

So it\'s really determined by the specific issue that you have that you
want resolved. If you determine you can get a decision on the merits of
an accessibility problem, for example, it might \-- the best way might
be the formal complaint process because if you evoke that process then
you are sure of some procedures. You will have an opportunity present
evidence. You will have an opportunity to seek discovery from the other
side. You will have an opportunity to brief issues. So it really boils
down to what kind of relief you are really seeking, and that process
will result in a decision by the Commission at some point.

MS. ROOKER: I think we have time for one brief question from Laura Ruby.

MS. RUBY: I\'ll try to be brief.

I have a question for Pam and for Margaret that\'s related to the
reorganization of the DRO. Obviously, you know, in industry, and at
Microsoft we are all trying to be proactive about addressing the needs
of consumers, and in order for us to do that we need to have good
communication and constant communication with the DRO.

And amidst all the sea of changes I, you know, think you can continue to
be our leader and our point of contact. So I had a couple of questions
about that. And just from experience at Microsoft, we reorganize every
six months. And when that happens the way we all communicate changes,
sometimes drastically, and we have to re-educate everybody on who are
the communication channels and things like that.

So my questions are: Number one, do we still

have \-- some people have moved from DRO into a lot of different places.
Pam, are you still our key point of contact? Do we still have direct
access to you so that we can come and talk with you about issues that we
have, you know, fairly informally so that we can be aware of what\'s
happening and your thinking?

And then, number two, do you have the means then to pull the group back
together from the outreaches of the complaints department so that we can
come in and do educational sessions with you? Like, for instance, we
want to be available at Microsoft to be able to talk to you about some
of the new and upcoming technologies to give you help with that. So do
you still have the ability to pull everyone back together as a group so
that we can education, you know, through the one point of contact?

MS. GREGORY: Laura, you will always have contact with me, I mean always.
I mean, people should feel free to contact the Disability Rights Office.
First of all, you should know that no one has changed yet because the
reform has not yet happened yet. I think it\'s probably not for a couple
more weeks. So everything still is business as usual. And I think that
it won\'t be business as usual because I do think that we are going to
be increasing our resources.

One of the things that we\'re planning on doing informally \-- well, let
me just point to Martha Conti. She is over on the far \-- my far right.
Martha Conti is leading the bureau on education and outreach, and Martha
and I have been meeting on a weekly basis just to share information and
make sure that we are not losing anything in terms of information. And
we had a \-- in our last staff meeting, well, the last DRO staff
meeting, you know, we are all worried about losing \-- you know, any
kind of change is a stressful event, we are worried about \-- I\'m
worried about not knowing about all the complaints, or you know, what it
is the senior groups are saying with this group, let\'s go make a
presentation.

So I think especially during the transition period we are going to
continue to have our weekly staff meetings, and anyone that has \-- that
does disability functions will be coming to our weekly staff meetings,
and that\'s a way to share information.

Just yesterday we met with WGBH and we had someone from the DTBT, we had
the mass media bureau and DRO was there.

So I think that we\'re still your contact on disability issues. And even
if it means that we are going to bring in other bureaus and offices, we
will do that. I don\'t think you are going to see a change there.

MS. ROOKER: Let me ask you, is this something that we might want to talk
about the ramifications at another meeting or something, or are you
going to discuss that now, Margaret?

MS. EGLER: Yeah, I was going to \-- I am going to follow up and see if I
can \--

MS. ROOKER: Oh, good. Okay, great.

Joining is an old friend, Margaret Egler, who is the Deputy Bureau Chief
for Policy for the CIB. Thank you, Margaret.

MS. EGLER: Thank you, Shirley.

It\'s a great question. I just want to follow up. I think Pam did a
really good job explaining what is happening with the arrow.

And first, I just want to say how happy we are that Pam will continue to
run DRO. Pam is \-- you know, has been here since \'86 \-- not \'66. But
she has been here since \'96, which is significant because obviously the
Telecommunications Act, and so when you want to talk institutional
history and the ability to go back and say, well, what were they talking
about when they wrote those rules. It\'s always good to have a person
who helped write the rules.

And so while we wore out Merrill Ico, we didn\'t wear out Pam yet. And
so she is here, and that\'s the most important thing, that Pam is here,
and we have that sort of institutional knowledge. And we have it in a
number of the other people in the current Disability Rights Office.

And the goal of the reform is to make sure that that kind of
institutional knowledge about the different rule sections and the
different sections of the act that relate to people with disabilities is
spread throughout the bureau, not just in the policy context, in the
rulemaking context, which is what DRO does, but also in the outreach
context in the division that Martha is going to be running, and in the
informal complaints context, which is the division that Jack Forsythe
runs, which is overseen by Thomas Wyatt.

So the goal here is to not have everything with disabilities just in one
place. It may make it easy to find the eight or nine people working on
it, but there are 200 and some people in our bureau, and we think that
the disabilities issues are just as important as are the consumer issue,
and want the people in our bureau understand what you say, rules against
slamming, it\'s also important that they understand the importance of
the rules concerning people with disabilities.

So the whole point of moving some of the people out of the DRO to do the
outreach or the complaint function was to get that institutional
knowledge throughout the bureau because we want the disability issues
raised up to the level of importance that the other consumer issues have
currently in the bureau. So that is why it happened.

As far as policy-making, I wanted to follow up on what Pam said. You
know, the great thing of the reform is that DRO has always commented or
worked on the rulemakings that other bureaus have done, specifically,
common carrier, TRS, the closed captioning, cable, mass media, and then
with wireless on the different handset issues and the hearing
compatibility issues. And what is nice is that while some of those are
going to stay in their bureaus the TRS docket is coming over to DRO.

So for the first time you will see in the coming months DRO originating
their own orders and being the first point of setting policy because,
you know, who else should really be \-- you know, being the first line
of setting policy for people with disabilities but the Disabilities
Rights Office, and that\'s why we are excited about the possibility of
basically doubling the number of attorneys there.

So that\'s the whole sort of process, what we are trying to do, and the
Chairman touched on this. Consumer policy will be taking, you know, a
higher place and that\'s why we are creating a consumer policy division
that will \-- well, it\'s a virtual division now. We already have the
people in place, but when the reorganization happens it will be real. So
we are going to have consumer policy, and basically the Disability
Rights Office, which will be disability policy, and that\'s consumer
disabilities which are, you know, just as important as every other
consumer.

So that\'s really the goal here. We are not \-- the goal is not to \--
certainly not to make anyone worry or to scare anyone, and I think part
of it is because, you know, as the FCC we always have to remember is
that we come off like a black hawk. So we inside know what we are doing,
the permutations. But when you look at us, it\'s like what is that, you
know. And you may hear these rumors people are leaving, people are
changing floors, you know, and so no one knows, you know, will Pam ever
talk to Suzanne again.

Well, I guarantee you it will happen. In fact, they will probably end up
being on the same floor continually.

So there is going to be no doubt that coordination will continue to
happen. I mean, Thomas and I run the two different sides at this point
of the shop under Dane, and we talk to each other what, 45 minutes. So
coordination is something that happens a lot in CIB. We hope to have \--
that it will continue to happen even more so.

So the goal here is to raise the disability knowledge throughout, and
that is why we reorganized it the way we did. I hope that helps.

So I will just jump right into what I am supposed to be talking about,
which is the \-- well, the acronym, the NPRM. Let me just give a little,
I guess, sort of background on what happens.

As Thomas explained, you have things to remember about complaints in the
Commission and how the Commission deals with complaints is that it\'s an
ongoing process. And CIB is a new \-- obviously a relatively new bureau
like the enforcement bureau, we were started in 1999, and you know, we
will be changing our name slightly. And the importance of complaints,
the complaints because they provide statistics has \-- it has increased,
especially that have been in the big slamming rulemaking that you saw
come out of common carrier in the last couple of years, and the truth in
billing rulemaking as well.

So the place where complaints have sort of gone depended on where \--
who were the people found the complaints against and why.

But as far as where we have the authority to handle complaints, we will
accept any complaint anybody wants to file with us. You have the FCC
address with the ZIP code and complaints come. So we will get these kind
of complaints, and they can be about anything we regulate. But the
question is what do we do with them.

Well, partly, we have rules that come in under Section 208 of the act,
Section 208, it has to do with Title II, which is common carrier. For
us, common carrier is about wire line and wireless, and it\'s something
to remember. Sometimes people think common carrier is just the bureau of
common carrier, which, of course, is wire line.

But under Section 208, there is a very specific process that\'s been
created. There is a formal complaint process and the informal complaint
process. So there remember we talk about formal complaints, and Thomas
touched on this, is that formal complaints \-- a formal complaint that
is filed would be \-- it\'s basically litigation. And the vast majority
of formal complaints are filed with this fee and it\'s a carrier versus
carrier. You will see that orders they are done generally by the
enforcement bureau, and that\'s it.

And they are telecommunications carriers. You get some formal
complaints, people that choose to use the formal process. I mean, we use
that very specifically. If you choose to use the formal process as a
consumer, it just doesn\'t happen that often.

So everything else, when we use the word \"informal\" is \-- every other
complaint is considered informal complaints. We just want to make that
clear because when we did this rulemaking that I\'m going to tell you
about it became very clear that the people throughout this Commission
didn\'t understand the difference. I mean, people thought, you know, an
informal complaint is a kind of matter, a formal complaint is a really
matter, you know, and that\'s really not the case. Formal complaint is
using this very, very specific process against the common carrier under
Title II.

Now, what Section 208 says is that the Commission basically will handle
any complaint that \-- from anyone that alleges a violation of any act
or order or omission by a common carrier. So to capture everything else
happening to common carriers, the Commission quite awhile ago set up a
series of rules you will find in Part 1 of our rules, and basically
that\'s the informal complaint process that Thomas was telling you
about.

Now, because it\'s Title II, those are just common carriers. So we could
get a million complaints about, you know, television stations or cable
stations. And unless they come in under a specific process, we set aside
or create \-- one thing was the old cable rate complaint process. Those
complaints will come in and basically EB, the enforcement bureau will
look at them because if you \-- we will send you a fact sheet because we
don\'t have the right under the act to serve those. We only have the
responsibility under the act and under our rules to serve informal
complaints that are filed against common carriers. That\'s the way our
informal complaint rules work. Okay?

Now, the exceptions, there are \-- if there are specific other
categories, like there is closed captioning complaint rules which are
specific under types of complaint processes, but everything else \-- the
informal complaints that come in, if they are against common carriers,
we will serve them. If they are against common carriers, we get them, we
will probably respond to you with a fact sheet, okay, if we have it, but
then they are here. There is nothing we can do of them.

Now, just as a sideline, EB constantly, the enforcement bureau looks
through all our complaints, whether they are common carrier or mass
media or cable, whatever. They are constantly going through our \--
going through the complaints to see if there is any \-- you know, if
there are violations of the rules.

So the informal complaint process works on parallel track with what the
enforcement bureau does, which is the enforcement process, the notice of
apparent liabilities, looking for violations of the rules. So we work
with enforcement, but they are two parallel tracks. So it\'s very
possible, and this is the \-- the best example is the slamming \-- that
this is before we got the new rules in that you get a lot of slamming
complaints. The big carriers, you know, would respond with a credit and
that it would all be fine, and yet we use those complaints as a basis
for creating the new slamming liability rules.

So just because carriers take care of the complaints and consumers 80
percent of the time are happy with it doesn\'t mean there aren\'t rule
violations going on that enforcement won\'t do something about. So it\'s
important to remember that there are two parallel tracks, which is what
consumer information does, and there is what the enforcement bureau
does.

Now we see the fact that (a), we can only force common carriers to
respond because that is the great value, as Thomas pointed out, of the
informal complaint process; that they \-- we send the complaint to the
carrier, the carrier must respond to us and the consumer within 30 or
less days, and then they respond. And generally, because the majority of
our common carrier complaints are about billing, something is taken care
of with the bill and 80 percent of the people tend to be happy with
whatever happened.

That\'s good because we get \-- I guess Thomas said we get like 90,000
complaints a year generally, but the problem is we got a lot of
complaints that we can\'t serve. And EB can look at them and we can send
a consumer fact sheet, but often the consumer would like something else
to happen.

So that\'s the purpose of the notice of proposed rulemaking that we just
put out, released on February 28th. And just as an aside, the question
was when are the comments due or something. Basically, under the law you
\-- the comments are actually due 30 days after publication in the
Federal Register. It hasn\'t been published in the Federal Register yet,
which means you can file comments on it. And once it\'s published in the
Federal Register we will actually have a deadline, but the docket is
currently open and you can file comments, and we can \-- we can
certainly get you all the link to the item or copy the item if you want
it.

But the docket number is CI, I think it\'s also our first, Consumer
Information Docket No. 02-32.

And basically what we are asking in this NPRM is, well, we have got an
idea here. Why don\'t we instead of just looking at Section 208 and say
that\'s our authority for dealing with complaints, let\'s look at
Section 4(i) and 4(j) of the act, and that basically says the Commission
can do whatever it needs to do to conduce its affairs. That word
\"conduce\" is actually in the act. I think it\'s a very old word. I
don\'t know.

So the point is we say this might be very well in the public interest
that we get \-- have the authority to serve these complaints against
anybody we regulate, and that a consumer complaint should be responded
to by people who are enjoying the benefits of a Commission license.

So this notice of proposed rulemaking basically puts out to the public
and to everybody who is interested should we basically take the
information complaint rules and make them applicable to every entity
that\'s regulated by the Federal Communications Commission. That would
include broadcasters, cable operators, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

So in a way it doesn\'t change much for the common carrier because they
are already under these rules. But for the noncommon carriers, it will
change things.

The biggest example, because another big complaint category for us \--
actually it\'s not big compared to the common carrier complaints \-- but
one that gets a lot of press is the indecency and obscenity complaints.

Under these proposed rules, if you write in and say you don\'t like what
was said on, of course, we will use the example of Howard Stern, on the
Howard Stern Show, and I heard it on whatever the radio station is
that\'s doing it in the area, the FCC would take that complaint and
serve it on that radio station, and they would have to respond to both
us and the consumer with, you know, why, why did you do this or why is
this not a violation of the rules. But it would basically give the \--
give the consumer, the audience, the listener the opportunity to hear
from the station itself. And the station, of course, is enjoying the
benefit of the license to use the spectrum.

We think it\'s going to be a very good idea, and we want to find out do
you think it\'s a good idea, does anybody think it\'s a good idea, and
that\'s why this thing is out for comment.

The other thing that this will do is that it will allow us to track
these types of complaints and these types of responses as well. Because
like I said, EB looks at the indecency complaints, look at every
indecency complaint that comes in, they determine whether or not action
needs to be taken. You have seen that there have been some rulings in
the past year that they have looked at, and that track will continue.
This gives the individual consumer a response if it\'s approved. Again,
this is a proposed rulemaking, and if the people are interested in
commenting on it, and letting us know, we certainly welcome that.

So that\'s the proposed rules that we are currently, those are the
proposed rules that we are currently thinking about.

MS. ROOKER: All right, we have questions. Ken?

MR. McELDOWNEY: Ken McEldowney.

Margaret, I\'ve got questions. It\'s a two-part question.

The first part, is the consumer and governmental affairs bureau is the
new reorganization, right?

MS. EGLER: Is it under the new reorganization?

MR. McELDOWNEY: Yes.

MS. EGLER: That\'s going to be the name of the bureau once the
reorganization goes through.

MR. McELDOWNEY: Okay.

MS. EGLER: Which I think it\'s in a week or two.

MR. McELDOWNEY: Okay, good enough.

Okay, now I can ask my question. Now, I had a good conversation this
week with Martha Conti about outreach and education, and then I look at
the reorganization chart, and low and behold, I find the consumer
publications are now directly under you as sort of a separate section of
the bureau.

Will we also be talking to folks in your side of the shop too just in
terms of educational stuff or what?

MS. EGLER: I mean, it\'s not a bad idea. The reason we put the pub \-- I
don\'t know, does everyone have the breakout of \--

MR. McELDOWNEY: Yes.

MS. EGLER: \-- sort of how things are going to work?

MR. McELDOWNEY: He was in the package.

MS. EGLER: I\'m in the middle in green.

MR. McELDOWNEY: Right.

MS. EGLER: And underneath me is Pam who is in the DOL, and on the other
side is Michelle Walters, who is going to be running our policy
division, and Michelle is the publications branch. And the reason we did
that was because the publications, basically the first wave of what we
have been doing is taking all the old fact sheets that you see on our
web page that the different bureaus have done throughout the ages, and
(a) updating them, and basically getting them all formatted the same
way, but making sure that the stuff is right and the stuff is correct
and legally up to date.

The people in my shop under policy are lawyers. So they will be
reviewing those, and that\'s why that came that way.

Now, as Martha will tell you, because we have been sort of discussing
this, one of the functions of her people in the \-- actually in the
description of the positions \-- is to come up with ideas for fact
sheets and brochures. I mean, anybody can come to us with, oh, I think
you guys need a brochure of this, you should do a consumer alert on this
and stuff. So we will be looking to her shop to come up with ideas
because they have the ideas on the forums, and meet with your people.

The key thing is that when those things are actually written and
produced they are coming up to policy that they are correct.

So we are working with Martha. An example, you should be doing, then
Martha will work with our group to say, well, I need a fact sheet on
this. We are doing a form on this. I can talk to Ken McEldowney, he
wants more about those long distance rates, and so what are we going to
do about that.

So that\'s exactly the right way to go, and we will be coordinating with
her on that. But it\'s basically to make sure everything was legal and
correct, that\'s why they come to policy.

MR. McELDOWNEY: Oh, my God, it\'s going to be written by the lawyers.

MS. EGLER: No, no. That\'s the beauty. There are no lawyer in the
publication branch. We did it on purpose.

MS. ROOKER: Margaret, thank you so much for joining us this morning, and
all of the people who have been here. I think it\'s been extraordinarily
interesting as you can tell from the questions.

We are getting the point where are going to have to a discussion to make
some recommendations to you all, so I think we can proceed with that at
this point.

Thank you very, very much.

(Applause.)

MS. ROOKER: This has been a very interesting and informative morning. I
would like to just recap some of the things that you all have said, and
perhaps this can be some of our starting point for recommendations that
we would want to make to the FCC.

First off, Thomas Wyatt came out and talked about making the process of
complaints more accessible to the disabilities community. Would we like
to put that as a proposal or suggestion to the FCC that in fact that be
explored if it\'s not being done right now? What is your sense on that?

Well, in terms of the process, the way that people are able to complain.
I think it relates also \-- actually, we probably should move on because
I think there is some other things that probably pertain to that. And
one of the things was Claude made the suggestion about when things are
changed, when the complaint \-- anything has changed, whether it\'s the
complaint process, a web page, any identification that\'s being changed,
that there be a better notification to consumers is one of the issues.

Do you want to comment on that, Larry?

MR. GOLDBERG: Yes.

MR. STOUT: I have a comment too, Shirley.

MS. ROOKER: Okay.

VOICE: Who said that?

MR. STOUT: Claude.

MR. GOLDBERG: This is Larry Goldberg.

MS. ROOKER: Oh, Claude, okay.

MR. GOLDBERG: And Claude and Brenda from our organization are often the
brunt of consumer complaints and we provide caption description. We get
before breakfast more complaints than the FCC gets in a quarter. So
it\'s amazing to me that they are not getting those complaints.

I think that we might need to in some way almost deputize these
organizations to be able to channel these complaints, even if we can
proliferate this kind of information to the public to try to channel all
complaints directly to a similar e-mail or a mailing address. We are
still going to get a lot of complaints because we are there, we are
friendly, we know the folks.

So I think the Commission needs a way to work with the bulk of
complaints the organizations is receiving them to get them in and be
able to work with them formally \-- informally, whichever way you \--

MS. ROOKER: Well, that was certainly the message I heard, that they
welcome this.

How do you, Larry or Claude, if you want to address this, how do you see
ways to facilitate this that we can make recommendations to the
Commission?

MR. STOUT: Certainly. One suggestion that I might make is that we
establish a working group of several members from this body who might
work with the Commission on various aspects of the complaint process.

There are so many issues that are going to be impossible for us to cover
this morning in any effective manner. I think it would be effective in
the interim between this meeting and the next meeting of the CDTAC that
a working group be established to work with the Commission to address
some of these issues because clearly the Commission is enthusiastic and
willing to look at ways to improve that process.

I think that if we can establish some informal communication, some means
of working with the staff so that we can bring more closely together the
FCC goals and the consumer complaints so that we can reduce those
misunderstandings.

MS. ROOKER: How do you feel, how does the committee feel about that?
That seems to get a general nod of approval.

How do you suggest we go about establishing this? I think it makes great
sense. Do we have some volunteers? Who wants to do it? Claude? Can we
get somebody to make a note of who, or can you \-- all right, let me
just see: Nancy, Laura, Nancy, Laura Ruby, Rich Ellis, Paul Schroeder,
Larry Goldberg, Jeff Kramer, Mike DelCasino \-- we are getting too big
here \-- Ken McEldowney and Claude. It\'s getting to be a large group.

Who else did I miss? Did I miss someone. David and Brenda and Judy,
it\'s the majority of the committee.

Does one of you want to volunteer to act as chair? Andrea?

MR. STOUT: Certainly, I will be happy to do that.

MS. ROOKER: I am getting very concerned about this. It\'s getting too
large. It\'s getting \--

MR. STOUT: Shirley, I would be happy to serve \--

MS. ROOKER: We are just going to have to limit it if I have to because
there is too many people. It\'s not feasible.

May I make a suggestion that we have representatives of industry and the
consumer complaint groups on this committee so that we can sort
ourselves out that way? I\'m going to have to leave it up to all. I am
not going to make the choices as to who is going to be on it. I don\'t
think that\'s my responsibility.

Yes?

MR. GOLDBERG: A lot of people volunteered because I think they have
concerns about a particular area, so maybe we need to say what those
areas of concern are. Mine obviously is television \--

MS. ROOKER: Right.

MR. GOLDBERG: \-- caption and description. Others are really concerned
about 255, but maybe you don\'t need six people about 255.

MS. ROOKER: Sure. Okay, I think \-- can I ask somebody to take it as a
responsibility to \--

MR. STOUT: Yes, I would be happy to serve in that capacity, Shirley.

MS. ROOKER: Claude. Okay.

MR. STOUT: This is Claude speaking, and I would be happy to serve as
chair.

MS. ROOKER: Okay, that\'s excellent.

MR. STOUT: And if I might add an additional point real quickly?

MS. ROOKER: Go ahead.

MR. STOUT: I am not entirely comfortable with dividing based on consumer
representatives and industry representatives. If however this working
group would be established, I would like to have a group representative
of both.

MS. ROOKER: Okay.

MR. STOUT: And then if in fact we chose to split out we would have that
option, but I wouldn\'t want to split out from the outset. I think it\'s
important that the makeup of this group include representatives from
both groups so that we can work closely together and then with the FCC,
with the government representatives, and really get some synergy out of
this.

MS. ROOKER: That was actually my intention if I didn\'t state that. It
was my idea that we have representatives on one group from different
interest groups so that it\'s inclusive. That was my thought.

Thank you, Claude. You have clarified that.

MR. STOUT: Thank you.

MS. ROOKER: Just a minute, please.

We can\'t \-- Scott, can you explain this, Scott? Our lawyer here.

MR. MARSHALL: I just raise a legalistic concern which lawyer are going
to do. Under the FACA rules only this committee as a whole is empowered
to give advice to the Commission. This working group could certainly
come up with recommendations that in turn will be provided to this
committee which would then communicate with the Commission formally. If
that\'s \-- I think that\'s the way it would have to be structured
because this small group cannot become another FACA. That would not work
legally.

MS. ROOKER: I don\'t think anyone has any problem with that, that it
would be something within this group, we would be the umbrella group for
it. But at any rate I think that\'s an excellent step forward.

Now the question is who is going to be on the group? I\'m going to have
to let you all sort that out among yourselves, but I don\'t think it\'s
decent to have as many people as who are volunteering.

Ken, do you have a comment?

MR. SEGALMAN: I have a recommendation.

MS. ROOKER: Okay.

MR. SEGALMAN: Is this the time for recommendations?

MS. ROOKER: Yes, absolutely.

MR. SEGALMAN: Okay. Yeah, I would, as an organization that handles
dozens of Cantonese and Mandarin complaints a month, I would really
recommend that the complaint section add to their staff include not just
Spanish-speaking \-- whatever they are called \-- CABs, CAMs. CAMs, but
also Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese.

MS. ROOKER: Yes, that was one of the notes that I made, and thank you,
Ken. All right, I don\'t think anyone is going to have any problem with
that.

Jim?

MR. TOBIAS: Jim Tobias.

We had some text that sounded like a recommendation about the
statistics, and I would like to \-- although I guess she has left the
room, I would like to thank Jenifer for putting up those stats. I think
they are very valuable.

What I would like to see is more technical specificity on them, and I am
thinking especially of the need for designers in industry to understand
which items consumers are most concerned about, so not just, you know,
my wireless phone, but you know, I don\'t have access through the menu
or a LCD with my wireless phone.

And in point of fact I would recommend that somehow the complaints or
inquiries be logged along with the Section 255 guidelines so that for
every guideline, which is, you know, down to some level of technical
detail, we have an understanding of how many inquiries or complaints
have been raised. It would help in industry training and awareness, and
I think it would drive home Brenda\'s point of this \-- you know, this
one consumer may be happy, but we haven\'t changed how products get
designed overall, and that\'s what can be defined in that.

MS. ROOKER: Okay, that\'s a good point. More detail in the statistics
that are being collected on the disabilities complaints. Does that do
it? Okay.

Judith?

MS. HARKINS: I would like to make this comment and volunteering for the
subcommittee and doing so, that general complaints that are not possible
to resolve with one company, complaints such as I can\'t use the menus
on my phone, or I can\'t find a phone that works with my hearing aid
should be counted as complaints, and should be followed up by somebody
who knows something about the subject matter to find out more specifics
about it rather than just let it die, because the consumer took the time
to complain, but didn\'t know in order to be counted you had to provide
a great deal of detailed information.

I think that DRO should be people writing back to them and say tell me
more about what you tried, and then that could be logged in as a valid
complaint. But if we don\'t follow up, we are missing \--

MS. ROOKER: Yes, you\'re missing a large number of people there who
might be registering a complaint that\'s not specific to a company, and
that should be something that we would encourage the FCC to do in terms
of the way they handle complaints because they are not really
considering that as a complaint at this point, I guess. Yes, okay.

All right, is that agreeable with the committee? Excellent.

All right, Andrea.

MS. BRUNS: Earlier when I was asking Thomas in terms of having an early
warning system for industry, and I think having more details in terms of
where and in terms of Section 255 is helpful to us, and if we can know
about these issues earlier rather than after, you know, you\'re way down
in the complaint process.

So I would recommend that if the CIB can establish an early warning
system and work with, you know, industry associations, or you know, that
would be very helpful.

MS. ROOKER: That is what I heard from you saying that oftentimes you
didn\'t know that there had been a complaint about a particular issue,
or that an issue was becoming volatile \--

MS. BRUNS: Right.

MS. ROOKER: \-- until it was already volatile.

Okay, so that would entail more response from the FCC to the community,
to the corporations \-- industry, okay.

We have got a question from 1966. Yes?

MS. GREGORY: 1966.

MS. ROOKER: \'66.

MS. GREGORY: Hi, this is Pam. I just wanted to add a little
clarification.

If a consumer calls the Disability Rights Office and they say I can\'t
find a phone that works with my hearing aid, we do have a dialogue. We
ask them what have you tried. Sometimes we will go and we will even do
some research.

So there is \-- there is a dialogue. It\'s not just, okay, click, you
know, at that point. There might not be a solution out there, but there
is a dialogue.

MS. BRUNS: Let me say that Claude or somebody complained in a way that
you couldn\'t really \-- you know, not you, it wasn\'t where else, it
was the question about late at night, went somewhere else.

And what I am suggesting is that it should come to you for this kind of
follow up.

MS. GREGORY: Right, I think that Claude\'s example was that a person
complained about lack of captioning, the captioning was being stripped
somehow because he knew that the programming was captioned. And when he
complained to the FCC, he got a fact sheet. I mean, that was misread by
whoever took that in because it\'s not someone asking for information,
it\'s someone wanting to file a complaint.

MS. BATTAT: There is dialogue if it\'s a telephone inquiry, but what
happens if that kind of complaint comes in in a letter? Do you inquire?
I doubt it.

MS. GREGORY: No, you would not imagine the dialogue that goes back and
forth. I mean, it\'s just really amazing. TTY, we call people. Most of
the disability complaints come through e-mail, and so that\'s what we
mostly do, but we also ask every individual what is your preferred mode
of communication. And if it\'s letter, it\'s letter. We do that. But
there does \-- a lot of the results really come from dialogue, whether
that\'s through e-mail or through TTY or relay or whatever that be.

MS. ROOKER: Okay.

MR. WYATT: And when Pam described the process, she described as more
than the complaint process. We do this throughout the bureau. So that if
you get someone outside the Disability Rights Office, you would have the
same dialogue. The CAM will try to ascertain more specifically what the
problem is, and at the very least explain to the caller or whoever \--
yeah, to the caller that how to go about filing a specific complaint. So
our goal is to make sure that we can inform interested consumers about
how to invoke their rights.

So that\'s something we are very, we are working very hard to do, and I
can tell you that I expect the CAMs to do that now, and I understand
they are doing it now. If you call any CAM with a general problem, you
should get some advice about how to go about planning, and the kind of
information you need to provide.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you. All right, let\'s move back to our
recommendations.

What else do we have here? Jim?

MR. TOBIAS: Jim Tobias.

I knew that we will not talk about technology today, and I just \-- we
just ran into it. I don\'t know how the case management system works
here at the FCC.

MS. ROOKER: I\'m sorry. We are trying at this point to collect
recommendations to make to the FCC.

MS. TOBIAS: This kind of leads up to one.

MS. ROOKER: Oh, okay. Sorry.

MR. TOBIAS: Yeah, I\'m not just trying to talk about technology, but I
can do that at home.

MS. ROOKER: Really, Jim? Come on.

MR. TOBIAS: What I am getting at is, you know, let\'s say I am a
consumer who uses captions or wants to use captions. It\'s not
necessarily the case that I am going to contact the DRO. I\'m going to
call the broadcast bureau, or you know, whatever.

And what I want to know is what are the plans for or what\'s in place
right now either for cross-training so that all of the CAMs understand
what the keywords are for disability issues, or what is the ability of
the DRO to search through the Commission\'s case management database to
discover cases that didn\'t come in through them, yet are disability
relevant.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. Sure?

MS. EGLER: Part of the goal of the reorganization is to get all the
complaints into CIB basically. So we have already begun discussions on
those types of topics with them, with the mass media bureau, currently
called just the media bureau, to make sure that those types of \--
whether it\'s a complaint or an inquiry, and that\'s a term of art \--
get to us. And once they get to us, we are confident that because of the
level of training that has been happening, that those complaints will be
entered correctly.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you.

All right, we are running out of time rapidly. Let\'s see if we can get
\-- Julie?

MS. CARROLL: Thank you. Julie Carroll, ITTAC.

I still think we are inside the complaint box, and as a recommendation I
would like to make is that the FCC consider alternative ways of
determining a noncompliance and enforcement.

MS. ROOKER: Alternatives ways to determining noncompliance?

MS. CARROLL: Yes.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. You mean other than the complaint process?

MS. CARROLL: And going about enforcement other than the complaint
process.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. All right, does that touch a nerve or anybody got any
comments on that?

Yes, Paul? Is that your comment on that, Paul or on something else?
Okay, go ahead, please.

MR. SCHROEDER: Julie and I are communicating telepathically.

I agree. I want to add to that that I think what would be helpful is if
we had the \-- the FCC had the involvement of its office of technology,
whatever it\'s called under a dealer, and wherever it is on the
reorganization, looking at trends and issues, because it is right, we
are obviously relying on the complaint process, and it isn\'t
sufficient, and it doesn\'t probably give the Commission enough
information.

So in looking at alternatives to investigating 255 compliance, I would
urge them \-- would urge the inclusion of experts in the technology
office in helping spot, can identify trends, and also gather information
for analysis about what actually is occurring.

MS. ROOKER: Okay, that makes sense to me. Does anyone have any comments
or questions about that?

(No response.)

MS. ROOKER: Okay, let\'s move on to other recommendations. Larry?

MR. GOLDBERG: I have one point. It seems that no matter what the
Commission does complaints and comments will come into all different
portholes at the FCC, and I think like other organizations they need a
way of assuring that does get traded. I know it\'s easy with e-mail. But
if it\'s a letter \-- we just heard that the ACB generated some 200
letters to the FCC about an issue, and they haven\'t been seen or
received by most of the bureaus. They may not even be here. We don\'t
know. So they really need a mechanism for assuring timely trading of
that information.

MS. ROOKER: I think that makes eminent sense, establish procedures for
doing so, to make sure that that information gets to where it needs to
be in a timely fashion.

Okay, do we have any other recommendations?

(No response.)

MS. ROOKER: If not, let me just give you a couple of bits of
information. We are going to have a lunch program so you are going to
have 15 minutes to get your lunch, to get back here. Dr. Bob Segalman is
going to demonstrate speech-to-speech communications, and I will
introduce him when we get back.

Right now we should be back here at 10 after one. It means we are going
to 10 minutes late. Can we be back at one? Well, I don\'t know that we
can get our lunch and be back at one. Five after, you have until five
after one. Please, please, please, get lunch, be back here. And if Bob
will forgive us, we will do it, that will give us a little bit of time
to get some lunch. Thank you.

(Whereupon, at 12:55 p.m.,the meeting was recessed, to resume at 1:05
p.m., this same day, Friday, March 15, 2002.)

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A F T E R N O O N S E S S I O N

(1:45 p.m.)

MS. SCINTO: \-- that the digital service uses. There are, I guess,
currently four interfaces that are used in this country,and problems
tend to be \-- have some correspondence to what interface is being used.
Problems also correspond to what the design of the hearing aid or
cochlear implant is, what types of immunity or shielding are built into
the hearing aid. They also correspond to the signal strength of the cell
phone transmitter and the distance from the hearing aid device, antenna
positioning on the cell phone, and also the extent of the individuals
hearing loss.

And there are some things that may mitigate some of the problems that
users experience. For example, there can be \-- with some hearing aids
there may be an ability to do some shielding so there is not as much
electrical interference, and there also may be the ability \-- the
further that you can separate the transmitter from the hearing aid that
may also mitigate some of the difficulties that are found.

And there is also anecdotal evidence, I think there is anecdotal
evidence that is documented in the record in this proceeding so far that
there are some digital phones that work much better than others. But
there has not been, to our knowledge \-- I mean, there is little
systematic research to figure out what exactly what are all the factors
and how does that \-- how does that correspond.

The real \-- one of the real driving concerns behind sort of looking at
this issue is that digital services are beginning to reach the point
that they are outstripping the analogue service. Analogue service was
sort of the original cellular phone service, and most of the analogue
carriers have switched to digital format for a variety of reasons, for
efficiency purposes, for the fact that digital services, you can provide
a number of features with digital technology that aren\'t available with
analogue technology. And analogue services are therefore being
increasingly displaced by digital services in this country, and digital
service is where kind of the state-of-the-art is.

And just a few illustrations. There is some information, we do an annual
competition report on the state of competition in the wireless industry,
and there is some discussion in this competition report about sort of
comparison and sort of quantifying the move to digital, but as of our
last competition report we were reporting that digital subscribers made
up about 62.2 percent of all wireless subscribers at that time, 67 some
million wireless subscribers, and among sort of major carriers they had
a \-- the majority were, vast majority of their subscribers may be to
digital services now.

Most new mobile phone sales are digital, and there is anecdotal
evidence, once again, I think it\'s some anecdotal evidence that may be
documented in the record on this proceeding that some hearing disabled
customers are having an increasingly hard time being able to find, being
able to subscribe to analogue services.

There also is an ongoing FCC proceeding looking at whether \-- for other
reasons whether the FCC rule that requires cellular carriers to provide
analogue services should be eliminated, and so that\'s sort of a factor
at play.

We initiated our current proceeding based on a \-- well, based in part
on a petition from the Wireless Access Coalition that actually asks us
to reinstate \-- this was a petition in 2000 that asked to reinstate or
reopen looking at a petition that had been before us in 1995, and my
understanding is \-- someone else is going to talk a little bit about
the background so I won\'t dwell on this particular aspect.

And I think the 1995 efforts, we had a petition that asked us to look at
listing the exemption for PCS services. I think at the time the
Commission declined to take that action, but convened a summit to sort
of look at these issues to try and reach some type, even get the parties
involved, parties together and try and reach some kind of solution or
resolution to these issues.

To date, there have not \-- a technical standard governing wireless
hearing aid compatibility and sort of specifying acceptable levels of
interferences has not been adopted or promulgated. The industry process,
again through this summit process, has put forward a standard that would
be used for measuring interference between cellular phones and hearing
aid devices that might be something that would provide information or
could potentially be used to provide information to hearing aid users
about what types of devices might potentially work together, and that is
something that

I think the wireless industry and wireless industry, the Cellular
Telecommunications and Internet Association, in particular, has proposed
to use this standard to kind of adopt this measurement standard into its
voluntary certification program for cellular phones to, you know, make
that part of that certification program with the thought that might
allow end users to pair cellular phones with hearing aid devices that
would under the standard look like they would work well together.

Our notice of proposed rulemaking, we currently are in a \-- we have
issued the notice of proposed rulemaking on this issue, and that was \--
our notice came out last November, and we have received \-- our comment
cycle, and our comment cycle closed fairly recently, in the middle of
February, and essentially what we did in the notice of proposed
rulemaking is we sought comment, in particular, the four criteria that
we are supposed to analyze in making a determination whether to revoke
or otherwise limit the exemption.

And in the notice of proposed rulemaking we tentatively concluded, which
is what we do in notices of proposed rulemaking, it\'s when you \-- you
sort of make a tentative finding about something, tentatively concluded
that the first two criteria that we are to evaluate had been satisfied
in light of the decline of analogue services and the growing prevalence
of digital services.

So we made the determination that under Criteria No. 1 revoking the
exemption would be in the public interest in view of this sort of
analogue to digital transition, and also tentatively concluded that
continuing the exemption would \-- could potentially prevent people with
hearing disabilities from using digital wireless devices which would
hamper there ability to work and communication in today\'s world.

And as I mentioned, digital services tend to provide additional features
that are not available with analogue service, and so, you know, you may
have data services, you may have features such as caller ID, short
messaging services, all of those type things that would not be available
to you in an analogue environment.

I think it\'s fair to say and I have to say I personally have not had
the chance to evaluate the record in depth, but I think it is fair to
say that there is general consensus in the record that both of those
criteria are met. Those criteria are not what I would consider to be the
harder issues.

I think the hard issues that we have to grapple with are the last two
criteria, is what is technically feasible for wireless services, for
wireless telephones, and what are the costs involved in \-- you know, if
we were to lift the exemption and require wireless phones to be hearing
aid compatible.

And so what we did in the notice of proposed of rulemaking is we sought
comment, we sought to try and augment the record with additional
empirical data about technical feasibility of compliance with the
hearing aid compatibility requirements.

And we also sought comment on whether the interference measurement
standard and the pairing approach that had been advocated by the
cellular industry would be, would that be satisfactory way of resolving
the issue of compatibility. So you would \-- you would sort of provide
information that would allow a consumer to potentially make a better
match between hearing aid devices and cellular phone devices.

We also sought comment on, sought more information about the costs that
would be imposed to require compatibility, and, you know, another aspect
of that criterion on cost is at what point would the costs become such
that they would affect the ability of compatible handsets.

We also, in addition to sort of trying to look at, obtain information to
help us evaluate those criteria, we made a couple of other \-- sought
comment or made a couple of other tentative conclusions about how the
hearing aid compatibility requirements work, and one of them is fairly
definitional in nature.

We tentatively concluded that when the act speaks of telephones used
with public mobile services, that that would correspond to what we had
considered to be covered, commercial global radio services in the
context of other rulemaking proceedings. Essentially in my mind these
are the wireless services that most nearly translate to wire line voice
telephone service.

A definition that we had used and that we tentatively concluded to use
in this context is that it would be telephones used with all wireless
systems to the extent that they offer real time two-way switched voice
service that are interconnected with the public switch network and
utilized an in-network switching facility which enables the provider to
re-use frequencies an accomplish hand-offs of subscriber costs, which
really you don\'t need to know that full definition.

As I say, this is \-- this is cellular service. This PCS service. These
are the real time switched voice services. Things like paging services
and those type of services in other context, and I think in this context
as well, we would not propose to regulate in the same way.

We also tentatively concluded that if the HAC exemption is listed for
public phone services or these covered CMRS services, the industry would
be required to develop technical standards for compatibility between
covered wireless devices and hearing aids. And we noted that the
standard for measuring interference that has been promulgated may be
potentially valuable does not appear to satisfy that requirement for
setting a standard for compatibility.

We also asked a question about, and I think this kind of goes to the
issue that we are directed by the statute to either revoke or otherwise
limit the exemption if we find that the criterion are met. And we asked
whether it would be possible \-- it would be appropriate if fewer than
all public \-- telephones used with public mobile services would be
required to be hearing aid compatible.

For example, if, you know, certain phones were hearing aid compatible
but other telephones, not all handsets out there were required to be
compatible. And we recognize that that has not been a position that has
been favored by consumer advocates, disability rights advocates who tend
to be in favor of a universal design approach.

But one of the issues that, you know, we are charged with looking at is
this issue of the costs imposed. So we sought comment on that question.

And then we also sought comment, looking forward to potentially lifting
of the exemption or otherwise limiting the exemption, how should we
accomplish that if we were to make that decision. Should there be some
type of a phase-in for compatibility, you know, compliance? We also
sought comments on whether we should impose things like reporting
requirements to allow us to track the progress or understand what was
going on on the path to compliance.

And so that in a nutshell is the inquiry that is before the Commission
at this point. And as I say, I personally have not had a chance to look
very carefully as the record. As you might imagine, there is significant
disagreement among the various interested parties on certain issues, on,
you know, some of the crux issues about what it is technically feasible
to do, and you know perhaps more basically on the issue of whose
responsibility is it to make these devices work together, recognizing
that there is the cellular phone side of it, but there is also the
hearing aid devices side of it, and that sort of compatibility is a
two-way street in some regard, and that is an issue that is kind of a
\-- it\'s a difficult issue that we confront in this context and in a
number of other context because the FCC has clear jurisdiction over our
licensees.

We have clear jurisdiction over our wireless licensees, but jurisdiction
\-- I am going to try not to say anything that will get me in trouble
with our general counsel\'s office, but jurisdiction is somewhat more
attenuated, shall we say, if you are asking the FCC to impose
requirements on, for example, the hearing aid industry.

So part of the issue, I think, that is before us is recognizing that
this is an issue that involves a number of parties, some of who are
regulated by us and some of whom are not regulated by us, how \-- what
is the best way to get the parties together to resolve this problem.
This problem is not \-- is going to require, I think, cooperation and
dialogue, and I think the progress that has been made thus far on the
issue, you know, has required that type of involvement, the progress
that has been made in resolving other similar types of issues related to
accessibility, particularly accessibility in correlation to the use of
digital wireless services.

I understand that there have been \-- there were some discussions this
morning about some of the problems with digital wireless TTY
compatibility and our requirements in the context of our Enhanced 9-1-1
proceeding, that those devices be compatible, and that is another
example of this type of issue where there are multiple parties involved
in resolving the problem.

I think that is an area in which there are \-- we are on the road to
implementation. There may be some bumps in that road, but the solutions
that have been developed have been developed through a multi-faceted and
multi-party industry forum, and that\'s one of the issues that I think
we look at in this type of context; is how do we promote that dialogue.
Is the best thing \-- you know, the best approach to take a regulatory
mandate from the FCC or are there other avenues that might reach a
result, you know, in a different fashion?

So that is the end of my formal presentation. I would be glad to take
questions, and I will do the best I can to answer them.

Larry \-- excuse me. I\'m going to call you Larry. I don\'t care what
your name is. Just answer.

MR. JACOBS: I like Larry. This is Steve Jacobs, IDEA at NCR.

Physically what are the range of different ways that a digital cellular
phone connects to a hearing aid? Is one like an inductive loop or is
that analogue? Could you give us some idea?

MS. SCINTO: And this \-- you are going to realize very quickly how
non-engineering oriented I am. But my understanding is that the use of
inductive coupling, and anyone else who wants to jump in and help me out
on this, go right ahead, but that inductive coupling is not used in a
digital wireless environment, and that there are some efforts or there
are some products available that will allow digital wireless handsets to
be use, for example, with neck loops and with devices that will allow
the handset to be somewhat separated from the hearing aid device. But I
don\'t believe that inductive coupling is used in digital.

MS. ROOKER: Okay, let\'s see. Let me get a feel for who wants to ask
questions.

MS. SCINTO: Or who wants to like help me out on the answers.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. All right, Judy. All right, go ahead.

MS. HARKINS: The neck loops that are used to distance the wireless phone
from the hearing aid, do you use inductive coupling or for pickup by the
telecoil in the hearing aid?

And many of the digital wireless phones also have this capacity in them
so that a hearing aid wearer who has telecoil can turn on to D switch,
listen to one of the phones, and hear speech, but very often they will
also hear interference, and this phone is designed in such a way to
distance it slight. In that case they report a lot less interference.
But in general, there is no standard, the HAP standard that is applied
to wire line is not applied to wireless phones, but there is some
inductive coupling used in digital wireless telephony.

MS. ROOKER: Do we have other responses? Okay, Andrea.

MS. WILLIAMS: I am not an engineer but after six years of this I feel
like I am on this issue.

First of all, this is what the loop set looks like, one of them, the
Nokia, the ATT wireless service.

In the wireless industry, from the way the engineers explained this to
me, compatibility and interference are really two separate and distinct
issues. Compatibility is a term of art that the engineering world has
\-- it\'s become synonymous with a duct coupling. RF interference is a
separate issue.

Under the FCC\'s Part 68 rules, pretty much as a standard in Part 68, is
for inductive coupling in a wire line phone.

The RF interference issue has never been addressed. In fact, from the
industry\'s standpoint, the HAC Act does not even address RF
interference. You are dealing with physics here.

Ron, help me out here now. How am I doing?

Okay, and that what\'s happening with the digital technology is you have
\-- with the analogue you have a sign wave and it\'s very \-- what\'s
the word I want to use \-- steady, very steady, whereas with digital
technology you have pulsing, and it\'s that noise and that interference
that the hearing aid is picking up, and that\'s what a hearing aid is
supposed to do, pick up sound, and it\'s being amplified, and that\'s
when you get interference.

Then what this allows, inductive loop set, is to put some distance
between you, the hearing aid, and the phone because the digital phone,
because it\'s a radio, it has to emit radio frequency energy. As we all
use around the office, if it doesn\'t emit energy all you have is a
paperweight.

(Laughter.)

MS. WILLIAMS: That means \-- a digital phone has to \-- analogue digital
phone has to emit energy. That\'s the way it works. And I think that\'s
enough of Physics 101.

MS. ROOKER: Let me just tell you for your information that Andrea has a
paper \-- she has distributed copies \-- of the Cellular
Telecommunications and Internet Association\'s position on these issues
that they have given to the FCC, and they are available for you. I think
they have been given out.

Have then, Andrea?

MS. BRUNS: Yes.

MS. ROOKER: Okay, at any rate, now, do we have more comments on this or
can we move onto another question? Is there another question? All right.

MS. BATTAT: When somebody has a hearing aid, they can couple with a
phone into different way. They can either hold the phone up against
their hearing aid, use through the microphone setting, or they can turn
their hearing aid over to a telecoil setting, which sets up this
internal coupling that we are talking about.

Now, there is about five million hearing aid users in the United States,
in America today, according to the trade association for the hearing aid
manufacturers, about 1.8 million of those have this telecoil capability.
And those 1.8 million are the people that really need the help most
because typically they are the ones that without using the telecoil have
absolutely no way of accessing any telephone wire line or wireless.

So although they are a smaller group of the total number of hearing aid
users, they are the most needy in terms of providing them with access to
the telephone system, whether it be wireless or wire line. And so this
is a very critical group, and these are the ones that want to use their
telecoil, and it\'s the telecoil that has to be activated on the hearing
aid.

In terms of the RF interference, I can tell you that today when you buy
a hearing aid there is a lot less interference picked up, there is a lot
better noise immunity in the hearing aids that are designed today than
there were back even in 1995, when we started on this issue.

Now, that\'s not to say that all hearing aids have very high noise
immunity, and we can get into that later. There are standards that, you
know, could be looked at. But I think, you know, just from personally
experience and many, many consumers that I have talked to their hearing
aids have much better RF interference immunity.

However, there is other interference that we are talking about here,
which includes also coming from the phone itself, which includes like
magnetic and electronic interference, and that really is something that
even with the better immunity on the hearing aid side is not going to
help that issue. That is something that really has to be dealt with on
the phone side.

So when we are talking about interference there are different things,
interference coming from different parts of the phone and from the
environment that \-- so we need to breakout the interference into RF,
electromagnetic and electronic interference, and what can be dealt with
when. I think that\'s an issue that needs to be addressed also.

MS. ROOKER: Okay.

MS. BATTAT: Just one more point also.

MS. ROOKER: Sure.

MS. BATTAT: I\'m sorry. But I say there is five million hearing aid
users today. There are potentially, potentially 20 million users, and I
think with the improvement of hearing aids, and they really have
improved a lot in the last five years, we are going to see an increase.
So you have a potentially huge number of people that could be affected
down the line as more people adopt a hearing aid as they become more
sophisticated in technology.

MS. ROOKER: Okay, Nancy, or \--

MS. BRUNS: These are CTI comments that we filed in the proceeding. What
I really would like you to \-- if you need a technical, well, I can say
in layman\'s terms, you may want to refer to Exhibit A.

CTI brought in its experts and they gave a tutorial to the FCC wireless
bureau in terms of what\'s technically going on from a layman\'s term,
and I think it\'s very helpful if you want to see, you know, what\'s
happening technically. You know, it\'s a very complex technical issue.

The other thing is that if this committee would like we would be happy
to entertain having a similar tutorial and bring Ike and bring our
experts in for this committee if they would like to have one at the next
meeting.

MS. ROOKER: We can talk about that, Andrea. And also Andrea has disk
copies if you need them, so they are available in different forms.

Wait, Nancy, were you \-- all right, Nancy.

MS. LINKE-ELLIS: I just have one quick comment, and that is, not so much
as a hearing aid user, because when I was able to wear hearing aids, I
was never able to use a telephone. The telecoil never gave me enough
power.

But as a cochlea implant user, I have a first generation clearing, and I
have had it for eight years, and it is digitally phased, and I have been
able to use a wireless cell phone since day one.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. All right, we have other questions or comments? Yes,
Susan Palmer.

MS. PALMER: I think, Brenda \-- this is Susan Palmer from Cingular. I
think, Brenda, you brought the critical piece in terms of the issue
around interference. I think that, you know, there has certainly been
claims for progress on the hearing aids. I suspect that that\'s the
case.

One of the issues though is that don\'t really know going in how much
immunity you are going to have. There is not scanners, there is not \--
and this is an issue we cam up with TTYs as well, is you are looking at
it, trying to match it to the industry that really doesn\'t have
anything specific in terms of specifications that we can match to.

So I think that there is a whole piece here that, again I hate to bring
up something that doesn\'t fall within the FCC again, but I think it
really cries out for interagency cooperation because there really needs
to be that side of the piece look at as well. I think that you should be
able to purchase a hearing aid and know how effective it\'s going to be.
You should be able to have reasonable ways of getting hearing aids, and
so there is a lot of issues that are underlying as well.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you, Susan.

Yes, Paul. It\'s Paul.

MR. LUDWICK: Yes, I would just like to follow up on Susan\'s comment,
and also \--

MS. ROOKER: Paul, give your full name if you would, please.

MR. LUDWICK: Paul Ludwick.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you.

MR. LUDWICK: I wanted to follow up on Susan\'s comment and also the
remark that you made about possible scenario follow-on, something
similar to the TTY wireless issue.

Well, I\'m not sure that that\'s entire the same situation because in
those two cases both participants are involved in the communications
business. We actually in many cases have worked in relationships with
those manufacturers and we just, frankly, know, know on sight and know
them personally. So it\'s very easy to establish a working relationship
and solve that problem.

It\'s entirely different in this issue because we do not deal with the
hearing aid manufacturers on either a professional or personal level. So
I don\'t know that \-- I don\'t know that cooperation toward a common
goal is entirely possible without some type of regulatory action on both
sides of the table as opposed to just one in this case.

MS. SCINTO: And I think that I wasn\'t intending to suggest that we take
the TTY form and make it a HAC forum, and you are right to point out
some differences there.

I think that essentially what we are looking at, exploring is how do we
reach a similar type result, how do we reach \-- how do we get our arms
around what can be done and, you know, what can be done on both sides. I
think that we have heard from folks in the hearing aid industry about
the efforts that they have undertaken, and I think there is a lot, or at
least in my perspective I see sort of some, you know, one side pointing
at the other side, the other side pointing at the other side, and that
doesn\'t seem to me to be a productive \-- that\'s not moving the ball
forward at all.

So you know, I can\'t speak to what this Commission is going to do. We
are just in the process of sort of looking at what are the options.

MR. LUDWICK: Oh, I agree. I kind of have been looking at the record and
I have seen that some of the commenters have made comment, possibly ATIS
could become involved, and I think that\'s really a possible suggestion.
It has a good possibility of working. And I think if left to themselves,
it\'s unlikely, since we don\'t work together on a regular basis, that
the two different sides of the table can come to an agreement without
some help.

MS. SCINTO: That\'s a good comment.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you. I think we have time for just one more question.
Brenda. And then you are going to just follow up on that by \--

MS. BATTAT: I want to follow up on what Paul was saying.

First of all, I am so happy that this notice came out, this notice of
proposed rulemaking. I really want to thank you. You need to go back to
1995 when the first petition was put forward to the FCC, and as a result
of that, you mentioned the summit, and Paul, I don\'t know if you were
around then, but the summit was bringing together hearing aid
manufacturers, telecommunications manufacturers, professional hearing
health professionals, and consumers.

We had committees formed that reported regularly to the FCC, and all of
those committees were co-chaired by a hearing aid manufacturer and a
telecommunications representative, and that was the \-- that went on for
several years.

And I can tell you I was extremely hopeful during that process, which
was initiated during the administration of Chairman Reed Hunt, because
he did not want to put out a notice at that time, he wanted to see if
the different parties could work together and try to come up with some
solutions.

And this has been going on since 1995, and I was a member of the
original coalition that filed the first petition, and then I \--
organization was a member of the second petition that was filed when we
got frustrated that that process wasn\'t working. But they didn\'t know
one another in the beginning, but they got to know one another very
well, and they were working on this.

And I do think that some solutions were developed. I mean, I really want
to thank the industry because they did come up with some solutions, but
\-- and there was a sort of momentum for awhile, and then suddenly it
sort of cut off. That\'s my impression, that there was quite a bit of
movement in the beginning.

And I have to say that one of the reasons, I think, that the momentum
just last and it got cut out is because it was a voluntary effort. Yes,
of course, Reed Hunt said you go and do this, but there was no law
telling them that they had to do it by a certain time.

And so I started out being very, very optimistic, and unfortunately, it
didn\'t pan out, and that\'s why again we put in the petition to reopen
and look at the revoke. So I think it is possible.

I mean, what was so impressive was to have people from the
telecommunications industry come into a meeting and not knowing anything
about hearing aids, and go out being talking intelligently about
telecoils and inductive coupling, and for likewise on the other side,
talking about wireless technology. So it did happen for awhile, but it
fizzled out.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you very much.

I have been asked by one of the public attending members if he could
make a comment.

MR. GORDON: Hi, my name is Joel Gordon. I am with the League of Hard of
Hearing, New York.

I don\'t have a question or comment. I just have something I want to
share with the committee.

I have an analogue phone, and I just want everyone to know I get 30
minutes a month for \$35. If it was digital for the same \$35 I would
get 300 minutes a month. That is where I would like some relief.

MS. ROOKER: He\'s talking about our pocketbook. And we really are going
to have to move on. I\'m sorry.

VOICE: I want to ask Blaise a question.

MS. ROOKER: I don\'t have time. I\'m sorry. We are running out.

VOICE: Could I ask her afterwards?

MS. ROOKER: Sure. Thank you, if you would.

Thank you so much, Dr. Blaise Scinto.

(Applause.)

MS. ROOKER: And Brenda Battat is going to give us a brief history of
this whole issue.

MS. BATTAT: Very brief. We have covered some of it already \--

MS. ROOKER: Good.

MS. BATTAT: \-- in the discussion, but the first petition, as I said,
was our petition in 1995, which was a petition to re-lift the exemption
on wireless. It was a petition with two consumer organizations \-- three
organizations that put that petition in, and basically it was a result
of seeing what was going on in Europe where GSM had been introduced
earlier, and consumers told us that they could not use the phone, and
that when the \-- when digital technology was introduced here, that we
need to be ready for it because they were having tremendous difficulty.

Not only were they having difficulty with interference to the user with
the hearing aid, but also to people who were in the nearby environment.
They would also be interfered with if they had a hearing aid.

So then Chairman Hunt at that time thought the consumers and then
industry together and the hearing aid manufacturers and asked them to
try to work out a solution together. And there were committees formed,
looking at long term, short term, and solutions related to the internal
coupling, which was a little more complex.

And those committees worked very hard and long hours over a long period
of time collaborating together, coming up with solution.

At the same time there was research being done which was funded by CTA
at the University of Oklahoma, looking at the issue, and there are
reports of that which we could make available, I think, if anybody is
interested. We can get web site. Basically looking at, and trying to
understand the interference, which hearing aids were affected, did it
make a difference which hearing aid, did it make a difference on the age
of the hearing aid, did make a difference in the type of the hearing
aid.

And essentially what came out was that just about all hearing aids could
cause or could have an interference using a digital phone.

So this has been going on for a very long time. But the issue here is we
can only use \-- hearing aid users can only use wire line phones because
there is a law in place which makes sure the phone are compatible with
hearing aids.

Think about it. Wire line phones are probably going to be going away in
the not too long distance future. We definitely are moving towards a
digital age. How then are people with hearing aids and people with
hearing loss going to use the phone? Can you tell me that?

I mean, we have to think about essentially what\'s going to potentially
affect a very large group of people. And having access to the phone,
there needs to be some sort of secure way of ensuring that they can
access the phone. This is the reason that we got into this in the
beginning, was to find a way to make sure that people with hearing loss
do have access.

And looking back on the history in terms of telecommunication access in
other areas, it has never been, never come about as a result of market
forces. We are just not seen as a central marketing strategy. It\'s not
part of a central marketing strategy.

So if you look back and there is at least five or six laws that Congress
has passed since 1982 up until now that have made it possible for us to
have access. And I can just quickly go down: The Telecommunications Act
for the Disabled, Hearing Aid Compatibility Act, Telecommunications Act
of 1996, the TTD Coded Chip Act, Title IV of the ADA which made it
possible to have relay. This is just some examples of the fact that \--
that\'s the reason why we are able to use the plain, old telephone
system.

And what scares is when the plain, old telephone system is no longer
there, what are we going to do if we don\'t have something in place to
make sure that digital is accessible to people with hearing loss.

MS. ROOKER: That\'s a very good question, Brenda. Thank you so much. I
appreciate it.

Now, we have got to move into the part of our discussion where we
discuss and make recommendations to the FCC.

Who would like to put forth some suggestions, recommendations for
discussion?

Let me just add a couple of things. Shelley Nixon has given me a list of
questions that she had about the speech-to-speech presentation of Dr.
Segalman for the DRO. And we are going to give those to the DRO, and you
will be getting Shelley\'s questions and the answers from DRO via e-mail
as per her request. We didn\'t have time to go over them, and I
apologize for that.

So at any rate now we are moving into the part where we need to talk
about recommendations. Do we have some thoughts from you?

Yes? And do we have people on the phone?

MS. TUCKER: Yes.

MS. ROOKER: Hi. Micaela, how is the baby?

MS. TUCKER: She is great. Thanks for asking.

MS. ROOKER: Do you have \-- do you have any comments or question for us?

MS. TUCKER: Not at this point. Thank you.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. Is Roger there, Roger Craft? Oh, excuse me, Lee
Bateman.

MR. BATEMAN: Yes.

MS. ROOKER: Oh, Roger is snowed in. Lee is via phone. Thank you, Lee.

MR. BATEMAN: I have also lost all your video, all your networks to your
\-- or your web \--

MS. ROOKER: You mean you can\'t see us?

MR. BATEMAN: No.

MS. ROOKER: Oh, you poor dear.

MR. BATEMAN: It was such a beautiful sight earlier.

MS. ROOKER: It was, wasn\'t it?

Do you have any questions so far for us?

MR. BATEMAN: No.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. We will come back to you. I hope we don\'t forget you.
We will try not to.

All right, I am ready to hear suggestions. Bob?

May I ask a show of hands so I can get a feel for who wants to make
comments or questions? Laura, and Bob, and who else? And Susan. Okay,
let\'s start with Bob. I saw you first. That\'s what you get for sitting
across.

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: Bob Chrostowski, TIA.

I just wanted to make the point that digital does not imply or use of
digital technology does not imply that there will be problems with
digital technology in the wire line. Digital technology is used today in
a wire line. The issue is wireless. I thought maybe you had all
accomplished that.

MS. BATTAT: Actually no. Digital sped through wireless phones also cause
interference with hearing aid.

MR. CHROSTOWSKI: Okay, that\'s unbeknownst to me because wire line, and
the devices that operate and create radiation are subject to FCC rules
that limit the amount of radiation.

So maybe that\'s an area that could be tacked, but I think from the
standpoint of telephones, really wireless is the issue because it\'s an
intentional radiator at specific power levels that the FCC in itself
sets forth that this power can be transmitted to meet the design of the
service.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. Laura?

MS. RUBY: As a recommendation for the FCC, I am just wondering, when we
were talking about homeland security the FCC was talking about the fact
that they didn\'t have jurisdiction over a lot of the other partners,
but that they were willing to coordinate with some of the other
government agencies, and find that coordination and help everyone to
work together on a solution.

And I am wondering if FCC wouldn\'t be willing to do the same thing with
the FDA so that we can bring the hearing aid manufacturers in and get
support from the FDA on that.

I don\'t know if we have ever gone that route before where the FCC
actually went to the FDA and said we would like your help in this
matter.

MS. ROOKER: Is this \-- do you have any knowledge of this issue? Do we
want to make this proposal that they do? Would that be your
recommendation that would come from the committee?

(No response.)

MS. ROOKER: All right. Then we will make that recommendation that the
FDA and the FCC tackle the issue of interference and accessibility to
digital phones via both sides of the aisle. Okay.

MS. BATTAT: One of the things that concerns me a little bit about that
is that where is the big burden going to be placed?

I agree it\'s a problem on both sides, and I do think that the hearing
aids are already making an effort, and I do agree that they need to
develop standard, but I would like to also hear that the phone industry
also agreed that they have to do something on their side too. I was
reading the comments in the proceeding, I felt that a lot of the burden
was being shifted over to hearing aids alone, and that the phone company
thought once the hearing aids did that then they wouldn\'t have to do
anything.

And so I do want make to make sure what is the motivation behind this
working together.

MS. RUBY: Are you suggesting that both agencies oversee both industries
so there can be equal cooperative collaboration?

MS. ROOKER: I think that was the point that she was making, so we will
underscore that. Thank you, Laura.

Susan Palmer. So anyway, we making, this is a recommendation that the
two agencies get together and work on this from an equal point of view.

MS. PALMER: This is Susan Palmer from Cingular Wireless.

And certainly as a wireless service provider, and looking at a growing
number of people with hearing aids, we think this is a critical issue.
However, there are \-- I mean, you said earlier that the reason that you
have hearing aid compatibility on the wireless side is there is
regulation.

The other issue that it\'s also technically feasible to do. I think one
of the reasons you are not hearing support for regulation on the handset
side is we don\'t know what that looks like. You know, we want to have
access. We want usability. We are also not clear if that\'s the best
way, the existing rules are the best way to approach it.

I don\'t think it\'s so much a matter of trying to shift the blame.
It\'s just we \-- I have engineers that I work with on other access
issues who are more than happy to provide very forceful and forthright
comments. To others who may not be as exciting about providing access as
we are saying that you really need to look at the hearing aid side, but
that\'s not something we cannot \-- we can walk away from.

I think that there is a significant issue there; that, you know, you can
make requirements, but that doesn\'t mean that if the hearing aids
aren\'t ready to work with the handsets, that those requirements will do
any good, and what we want is something that works, not something
that\'s just required, and I think that\'s what you want as well.

MS. ROOKER: Okay, thank you, Susan.

Andrea Williams.

MS. WILLIAMS: One of the recommendations or comments, I guess, I would
like to make in terms of the FCC, and it\'s also \-- comments is, you
know, we don\'t want to take like a one size fits all approach, and that
this may require a combined approach of a number of solutions, not just
one solution. And we know that there are other countries who are dealing
with this issue, and we would like to see no stone unturned.

And we know that in Australia and European scientists, researchers have
done some work, and we would really like for the FCC to take a hard look
and see whether some of that work is applicable here in the U.S. Some of
it may, some of it may not, but I don\'t think, particularly when you
are dealing with phone manufacturers are global, hearing aid
manufacturers are global, that we can operate without thinking of the
global implications.

And I am not saying that when in Australia that it\'s, you know, a sure
fired thing that it\'s going to work in the United States, but I don\'t
think you can ignore it.

MS. ROOKER: Do we know that the FCC hasn\'t looked at those other
countries?

MS. WILLIAMS: Other than what we have presented to them, I don\'t
believe they have any discussions with Australia or the Europeans.

MS. ROOKER: Do you have a comment, Judith?

MS. HARKINS: In our reply comments, we noted that the Australian Human
Rights Commission that looked into this tried to mediate the problem
when the took down their analogue network and only had GSM. They looked
to the United States policy as the way of solving the problem globally.

And so I think the FCC has to do something because, as Brenda said,
previous efforts has allowed it. Hearing aid users can\'t find anything
on web sites and companies about what they can use. They have got
accessories, but you know, it\'s a very difficult situation for people
whose hearing aids are not working well.

MS. ROOKER: I understand your point. But back to Andrea\'s comment, is
there any reason why we would not propose to the FCC that they examine
other countries\' approaches to see if it\'s appropriate?

MS. HARKINS: Sure.

MS. ROOKER: But you feel that that\'s already been done and \--

MS. HARKINS: No.

MS. ROOKER: \-- that they are looking to us?

MS. HARKINS: No, I don\'t think you are going to find magic bullets in
other countries, especially in areas under FCC\'s jurisdiction.

In our comments we provide \-- we have proposed that this be phased in
because it gives everyone an opportunity to sort through these things
because they have not been leading for years, and to look at what can be
done, what multiple approaches might be. And so we were proposing that
the FCC act, but that it not act ask if this had to happen tomorrow, but
that they phase in introduction of handsets that are deemed to be
accessible in the community.

MS. ROOKER: Back to the issue that Andrea raised, however, I am not
trying to beat it to death, but do we as a committee want to make the
recommendation that, if appropriate, that we look at other countries?

I am simply trying to deal with \-- no one has a problem with making
that suggestion. Okay.

Yes.

MS. BATTAT: I think it\'s also important to remember that when we do
that, that both the countries that they are looking at have nationalized
medicine, hearing aids are free, so that any change that could be made
is very easy because the consumer does not have to go out and spend
their own money to buying new hearing aids.

So if standards are developed, it\'s very easy, and it\'s also very easy
for Australia and England to say to their national heath service you
don\'t prescribe any hearing aids that don\'t follow these standards. We
don\'t have that kind of social setup here.

MS. HARKINS: That\'s what I mean by in terms of the FCC taking a long,
hard look. That\'s why I said I don\'t know everything, what the
Australians do or what the Europeans do is going to work, but they need
to look, take a look.

We can\'t \-- I mean, if we research it, if those issues, social policy
issues, all of that needs to be looked at.

MS. ROOKER: Okay, Matt, you had a comment or a question or
recommendation?

MR. KALTENBACH: I think where an interface exists between two
industries, and between to regulatory agencies, we in the CDTAC should
recognize that this is going to require both regulatory \-- both
governing bodies and an industry forum working together towards a common
goal.

I suggest that we advise the FCC to charter a technical advisory
committee to develop a work scope and locate a common forum to develop
not just a position, but an action or a work plan towards resolving this
issue.

MS. ROOKER: All right. Comments? Clayton?

MR. BOWEN: Shirley, just very quickly to go along with what Matt was
saying, and to revisit Laura\'s recommendation a few minutes ago.

It may add more weigh to that recommendation if we say the number of
people that will impacted. Brenda mentioned that there were six million
users and there was a potential for 15 million, or whatever. If we
preface that recommendation based on the impact of five million people,
that we recommend that.

MS. ROOKER: That would include the scope of people that would be
affected by changes or whatever.

MR. BOWEN: Yes.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. All right, but let\'s go back to what Matt had just
stated, that he has put forth for a committee.

What is the feeling?

MS. BATTAT: The only thing I can say is that that is something I \-- I
can\'t as CTI recommend that because that is something that I do not \--
with my members. I just can\'t, Matt, even though you are a member, but
not with other members. I am not sure all phone manufacturers feel that
same way.

MS. ROOKER: Do we have other comments on it? Susan Palmer.

MS. PALMER: I think it\'s important that we make it a technical group
like Matt was saying because I think we need to look at the technology
issues first, and then we need to look at the underlying support issues.

We don\'t want to come up with a terrible solution because it\'s the
most affordable. What we need to find out is what is the best solution,
and then how do we get it to people.

MS. ROOKER: So we look at the best solution in a broad scope, not
because it\'s \-- Matt?

MR. KALTENBACH: Maybe there is some misunderstanding.

What I was suggesting is within the FCC the only body, I believe, and
Shirley, maybe you can help me clarify this, are technical committees
which are actually able to create positions within the FCC to develop
work items for bodies outside the FCC.

So what I was suggesting was simply to explore in depth to determine if
there is further work that is required, further actions that could be
taken, or further ways of just enhancing the industry to cooperate
towards a solution or improving the situation. It would be the technical
advisory group within the FCC that would write the direction or the
action that the FCC recommends and direct that towards an industry forum
like ATIS or some other acceptable forum for investigating those types
of resolutions.

MS. ROOKER: I think you just confused me.

MS. LINKE-ELLIS: Are you talking about the federal advisory committee
that the FCC had to make recommendations of \--

MR. KALTENBACH: Exactly. They should write the scope of work of how the
industry should work towards a solution and involve the FDA.

MS. ROOKER: And they would send that to the FCC for recommendation, as
their recommendation.

Does that have \-- Susan Palmer?

MS. PALMER: You are saying concurrent jointly with the FDA, right, not
as aside?

MR. KALTENBACH: Absolutely.

MS. PALMER: Okay.

MS. ROOKER: Okay? Well, do we want to put this as a recommendation? What
do you think? Brenda, do you want your dissention in there?

MS. BATTAT: I don\'t think we have a problem with a technical \--

MS. ROOKER: Okay.

MS. BATTAT: \-- advisory. I thought \--

MS. ROOKER: All right, technical advisory committee. We will review the
transcripts and make sure we get it right. Okay? Thank you.

And do we have other recommendations?

MS. BATTAT: Do you want to put a time frame of when you want something
because we have been doing this kind of thing? I do not want it to be
open ended.

MS. ROOKER: Quite candidly, I don\'t believe that we as a committee can
put a time frame on it, but you were suggesting that there be a time
frame put on it by someone.

MS. BATTAT: Yes.

MS. ROOKER: Okay, does that \-- okay, I don\'t think that\'s going to be
a problem.

Paul, Paul Ludwick.

Brenda, would you pass that on to him, please?

MS. LUDWICK: My name is Paul Ludwick, and I wanted to bring up a related
subject. I discussed it with Scott in an e-mail as a possible agenda
item.

But on one hand we have a technical issue with hearing aid compatibility
as they relate to the digital handsets and the digital network. On the
other hand there is a timing proceeding before the FCC to discontinue
the analogue network.

So I think they \-- they interact in some way and I think they have an
effect on people in this room and quite a few Americans, and I just
wondered if the committee wanted to discuss that in any way.

MS. ROOKER: Well, is this something that we would have as an agenda item
for the June meeting, or is it going to be too late?

MR. LUDWICK: I can\'t answer that. I\'m not familiar enough with the
proceeding. Blaise or Andrea might be able to discuss it.

MS. ROOKER: Is anyone here that can address that? Blaise is still here.

MS. SCINTO: I can\'t actually give you a specific time frame for that
proceeding. I know that \-- because that proceeding is not housed in my
division, but that proceeding is in fact being actively worked on, and
you know, as Paul mentioned, the issue of what elimination of analogue
requirement will do in this context for these various accessibility
issues that are before us, the accessibility with TTY devices prior to
full implementation of the digital solution for TTY devices, and the
hearing aid issue. Both of those are issues that are \-- I think, were
tee\'d up in the notice of proposed rulemaking in that proceeding on the
analogue issue.

So as for time frame, it\'s difficult to say. It is possible, but if
this is deferred to a June meeting that might be too late. I can\'t
speak definitively on that though.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you, Blaise.

Paul, would you want to take the responsibility of finding out what kind
of time frame is involved using the mailing, e-mailing this within the
committee to point to the issues?

MS. LUDWICK: Well, I think the proceeding details the time line for the
discontinuance right now. But Andrea might want to make a comment on
that.

MS. WILLIAMS: One of the things the industry has just done, we realize
that we have this problem with digital networks and digital phones, not
only for hearing aid compatibility but also for TTY, and that is why we
strongly recommend that there be a transition period.

We have not told the Commission, you know, what we felt that time frame
should be because, frankly, we couldn\'t get our members to agree, but
we do recognize that there has to be a sufficient amount of transition
period because we can\'t take analogue out and people, our subscribers
who use hearing aids and TTYs, until we can get a digital solution in
there for them.

MS. ROOKER: So you are saying you think it\'s going to be some time
before this is actually in effect?

MS. WILLIAMS: What, in terms of the analogue?

We have asked, and we have \-- well, I know the other part of my office
has been advocating at the Commission that there be this transition
period.

MS. ROOKER: But you don\'t know the answer to that?

MS. WILLIAMS: We don\'t know what that answer is going to be.

MR. LUDWICK: Well, the transition, excuse me. The transition period at
the date that the regulations are enacted will be different.

MS. ROOKER: Right.

MR. LUDWICK: The transition period will probably be two to N years, but
the proceeding will be decided, as the lady referenced, possibly before
June. So that\'s why they are interrelated right now.

MS. ROOKER: Well, what I am asking you is do you want to find out and
see if you want to present issues to the committee via e-mail?

MR. LUDWICK: Well, as a company, Sprint, we have already presented
comments and done ex parte, ex parte meetings, but as a group \--

MS. ROOKER: As a committee.

MR. LUDWICK: \-- it may be \-- it may make sense.

MS. ROOKER: Unfortunately, there is probably not going to be even
anything we can do. We don\'t have a meeting until June. Unless somebody
wants to spearhead an effort to do something, I don\'t see it happening,
I\'m sorry to say.

We have completed our assigned chore for this moment unless someone else
has a very pressing recommendation they would like to make. I would like
to thank you.

We are going to have \-- believe it or not you are actually going to get
a 15-minute break.

(Applause.)

MS. ROOKER: Three o\'clock.

(Whereupon, a recess was taken.)

MS. ROOKER: Back to your seats. Should I get up and scream? Please could
I have the room back to the table?

We are going to order some cabs. Do we have a show of hands to who needs
cabs for after the meeting?

(Show of hands.)

MS. ROOKER: Okay. Six cabs. Let\'s see if that\'s going to be enough. If
you need a cab, stick your hand way up.

(Show of hands.)

MS. ROOKER: One, two, three, four, five, thank you, Larry, six. Is there
a seven? Do I hear seven? Six, we\'ve got six cabs going. Okay. Going,
going. All right, let\'s get back to serious business.

Narda, thank you for being patiently waiting for us while I try to round
up this group.

We are very pleased to have with us as the next presenter on our agenda,
the changes to the universal support mechanism. There is a proposed
rulemaking. We are going to learn about it. Narda Jones is an attorney
with the Accounting Policy Division of the Common Carrier Bureau. Please
join with me in welcoming Narda Jones.

(Applause.)

MS. JONES: Okay, I have never seen myself on TV before. This is very
strange.

MS. ROOKER: You are beautiful.

MS. JONES: All right, I will try not to be distracted.

Good afternoon. I don\'t think I\'m going take up the whole 45 minutes,
but just so that I can get a sense of how detailed I should be, do we
have any educators in this group? I know it\'s a varied group, but are
there any educators?

Okay, so not that many. So for most of you the schools and libraries
program is not something you are familiar with, I am gathering. No.
Okay, so you have been there.

All right. Well, I was asked to do three things: Talk a little bit how
the program works; talk about the rulemaking that\'s pending, and take
some questions.

MS. ROOKER: Could we please? I\'m sorry. I hate to be a nag, but I
can\'t hear Narda and I want to hear her. Thank you.

MS. JONES: I\'ll talk louder as well.

MS. ROOKER: No, it\'s not \-- it wasn\'t you.

MS. JONES: So the schools and libraries mechanism of the Universal
Service Program is money that\'s available to schools an libraries based
on how poor the school is, and how the school\'s poverty level is
determined is based on the National School Lunch Program count. It\'s
basic information that public schools and libraries in the school
district have access to.

Schools and libraries get the money by filling out an application, and
the application process is two steps, roughly. The first step is a
request for proposal type thing where the school or library says these
are the type of services that we want. They can apply for internal
connections, internet access and telecommunication services, and those
are the three categories.

And they put out a request for proposal to the world, and it has to go
through a competitive bidding process, which is about four weeks long.

During that time period the request is posted on the administrator\'s
web site, and service providers look to the web site and they can bid on
the various proposals. At the end of the four-week competitive bidding
process the applicant chooses a service provider or several and submit
is usually referred to as the application to the administrator.

Do you folks \-- I think I skipped a step. I didn\'t explain who the
administrator is.

We at the FCC created ancillary group definition is kind of nebulous
right now, but it\'s called the Universal Service Administrative
Company, and that group acronym is USAC, administers the schools and
libraries program on behalf of the FCC. They are strictly an
administrative body. They don\'t make policy.

Okay, so let me go back into my description of the way the program
works. All of the stuff is happening at the administrator. And when the
applicant submits its application, the pieces of paper to the
administrator we have chosen these providers for these services. The
administrator looks at the application to make sure that the services
that they are asking for are eligible, the uses that are proposed are
eligible, and that the applicant has the necessary resources to make use
of the funds.

So for example, if the application is seeking internet access for 40
computers, the administrator will look to see if they have 40 ports. Do
they have teachers trained to instruct them in the use of the internet?
Do they have a technology plan which incorporates the use of an
internet, of internet access? So those are the types of things that the
administrator looks for in the application.

And all those things are done at our direction. We have rules which lay
out what an application should look like and what services are eligible
and what uses are eligible.

One interesting factor that the program is, once the application is
approved the money doesn\'t go to the applicant, the school or library.
It goes to the service provider, and the money is provided as a
discount, not as cash in hand.

So I said earlier applicants get money based on how poor they are and
their poverty level determines how much of a discount they get. So the
poorer schools get 90 percent discount, so if the service they are
asking for is \$100, they only have to pay 10 to the service provider,
and the program pays the other \$90 to the service provider. So that\'s
basically how the program works.

Does anyone \-- I know that was technical and jargon filled, but does
anyone have any questions about just the mechanics of the application
process?

MS. ROOKER: I would like to ask one question. Maybe I am getting ahead
of myself. But that is about the, when you are talking about the cost of
the service, how do you know that what is being proposed is the cost for
the service is reasonable? Do you take a check on that?

You are saying, for example, that the FCC \-- the universal service fund
pays 90 percent, and the school would pay 10 percent.

MS. JONES: Right.

MS. ROOKER: Or \$100.

Is there some guideline set up for what the costs should be?

MS. JONES: Well, the program really relies on the competitive bidding
process to ensure that prices are fair. So we don\'t look at a price and
say no, you can\'t have this money because that pricing side, that\'s
the bidder \-- that what you could get in your area, then we approve the
applications. The might be other reasons that undercut approving it but.

MR. KALTENBACH: What current lines exist to define the type of
technology or the complexity of the technology a school is able to bid?

For example, in our area I have knowledge that one of our schools
received an exotic fiber optic PC network technology, where normal
industry practice is to use a copper-based technology.

What assures that we get the maximum value for the dollars that are
available for the school?

MS. JONES: Nothing, there is nothing in our rules that stops a school
from applying for the top of the line that\'s out there. That is the way
the program is designed, and some people would say that why \-- well,
let me \-- let me also say that we have a rulemaking that\'s out, which
is a perfect opportunity for you to express your view that that\'s
perhaps not the best way to run the program.

That is a concern about gold plating, and whether, you know, the same
schools continuously get the best that there is and leaving \-- because
they are eligible, and they can come back year after year to get money.

MR. KALTENBACH: My concern isn\'t that it\'s the best you can get, but
if it\'s needlessly lifetime maintenance intensive, to move a PC or to
make any changes in that technology are extremely expensive because just
to splice a fiber optic cable costs hundreds of dollars of manhours for
the skill level certified to make that kind of a change, whereas it\'s
very low cost to maintain a copper-based technology. So it goes beyond
gold-plating into just common sense.

MS. JONES: Well, the program doesn\'t pay for maintenance. So if a
school or library administration decides that it wants to get support
for a system, installation and the actual cost of the network, it can do
so, but it understands that the cost for maintaining that program does
not come from the Universal Service Program. The rules proscribe
maintenance in fact.

Yes?

MR. JACOBS: This is Steve Jacobs from IDEAL at NCR.

ADA mandates that any monies from this \--

MS. JONES: I\'m going to get to that.

MR. JACOBS: Okay.

MS. JONES: Okay? I know that that\'s the hot button issue, and I just
wanted to make sure everyone understood the mechanics of the program.

MR. TOBIAS: Hi, Jim Tobias, Inclusive Technologies.

I\'m sorry, I just wanted to get the dates on the comments and reply?

MS. JONES: Sure.

MR. TOBIAS: When was this published and what are those dates?

MS. JONES: Okay, it was released on January 25, 2002. It was published
in the Federal Register, a summary of the document was published on
February 16th. You have 45 days after publication in the Federal
Register. I can\'t remember the exact dates. I think \-- you will have
to count out.

MR. TOBIAS: It\'s around about the end of the month?

MS. JONES: Yes. And then replies are due 75 days after publication in
the Federal Register.

All right? So the next step is to talk about our proposed rulemaking
which I just gave the comment and reply dates. I think I\'ll just get
right to the point.

Among other things, in general, the NPRM, notice of proposed rulemaking
sought to make the program more streamline, get rid of some rules that
were \-- we had received input from folks that they were overly complex
and didn\'t necessarily take into account the changes in the
marketplace, and changes in the way people were applying for money.

We also proposed that we put an ADA compliance certification on the
forms themselves. As you all know, there is an ADA requirement. And
although the forms previously alerted folks to the ADA requirement, they
didn\'t say you certify that you are taking this money and you are
complying with ADA.

So in the interim we asked for comments on whether we should take \-- we
should impose such a certification; if so, how we would go about
enforcing. Well, whether we should go about enforcing it, and if we
should go about it, how we should go about enforcing ADA compliance.

So we did this because we got a lot of comments from folks in the
community that we were really losing an opportunity to get folks on
board with the requirements of the ADA, and that\'s a very valid
concern, and one we hope to flush out some more in the order.

We haven\'t gotten comments yet, so I can\'t give you a sense of what
folks are saying thus far, but we expect them soon.

I know this raises a lot of issues with folks.

Sir, I don\'t see your name, but you\'ve got a question?

MR. JACOBS: Just call me Steve, Steve Jacobs.

VOICE: It\'s in there.

MS. JONES: Oh, I see, it\'s Steve Jacobs.

MR. JACOBS: Sorry about that. Thank you very much.

MS. JONES: You\'re welcome. Did you have a comment, question on this
one?

MR. JACOBS: Actually you were addressing my question.

MS. JONES: Anyone else?

(No response.)

MS. JONES: Okay, that was really all I was asked of you unless other
folks have more questions.

MS. ROOKER: I take it \-- this is Shirley Rooker. You are still working
out the ways that you are going to check ADA compliance, so this means
that there was no requirements previously that any of the ADA
requirements be met.

Was that ever checked or was that not part of it at all, part of the
universal service?

MS. JONES: I would say that while the requirement existed at law, it
wasn\'t one of the things on the checklist of things to check. It
wasn\'t one of the things that were audited on a regular basis.

MS. ROOKER: All right. Larry?

MR. GOLDBERG: Just to check on the universal service. You can purchase
computers and various forms of hardware, not just the service from an
ISB?

MS. JONES: Is your question whether you can buy a computer?

MR. GOLDBERG: Yes.

MS. JONES: You can buy a computer.

MR. GOLDBERG: So this ostensibly could mean that every computer needs to
have a screen reader, for instance?

MS. JONES: A what?

MR. GOLDBERG: Every computer purchased under this program could
ostensibly require accessible software for blind users?

MS. JONES: If that is \-- if the scope of the ADA would require that, I
think, yeah, that\'s true. I am not an ADA expert. But that\'s true.

MS. ROOKER: Mike?

MR. DelCASINO: Mike DelCasino from AT&T.

Narda, a quick question and I apologize. I might be a little unfair, but
do you have any sense at all about where the universal service fund is
going in terms of expenditures?

MS. JONES: Well, it\'s capped.

MR. DelCASINO: It\'s like \$55 million or something now and \--

MS. JONES: The schools and libraries portion is capped. It\'s capped by
statute. It\'s not going to go up unless Congress changes the statute.

MR. DelCASINO: Okay.

MS. JONES: My sense is they are not changing it.

MR. DelCASINO: And is that the biggest piece?

MS. JONES: Expenditures?

MR. DelCASINO: Yes.

MS. JONES: Yes.

MR. DelCASINO: Okay. Thank you.

MS. JONES: You\'re welcome.

MS. ROOKER: Yes? I think we need to \-- before we have \-- can we check
and see if our people on the phone have any questions?

MS. TUCKER: Hi, I am Micaela Tucker.

I don\'t have any questions. I just want to tell you that Lee had to
leave, and to say thank you for all the good work. We enjoyed it, and
have a good weekend.

MS. ROOKER: Well, thank you, Micaela. Give your baby a hug.

MS. TUCKER: Okay, thanks.

MS. ROOKER: And Lee, you are there. Do you have any questions for our
\--

MS. TUCKER: Lee is the one who had to leave.

MS. ROOKER: Oh, he had to leave. I\'m sorry.

Okay, thank you, Micaela.

MS. TUCKER: Right, but he was the one who said thanks and have a good
weekend.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you.

All right, I\'m sorry. Someone down here? Yes, Paul.

MR. LUDWICK: Paul Ludwick.

I understand that there is some reference to database services for the
schools and libraries; is that correct?

MS. JONES: You have to be more specific. Where is the reference?

MR. LUDWICK: I am actually not sure. I was really briefed before I came
on this, and I understood from my conversation that there is reference
to establishing some type of database into which all eligible services
and providers would be entered.

Could you explain that a little bit to me?

MS. JONES: I think so. Tell me if I\'m on the right track.

There is an eligible services list which is divided by service category,
internal connections, internet access and telecom services, and that
list is available on the USEC web site.

There has been a lot of \-- and that list is descriptive of what would
fit. It doesn\'t have brand names, for example. So it won\'t have a
Cisco Server 2000. It would just say a server is a thing that does
blah-blah-blah. You can see that\'s not my strong point.

So there has been a lot of requests from folks to say, look, it would be
so much easier for us if you would tell us which brand name products
already fit these categories, and you can just go to a drop down menu
and click on it, and we\'re going to take this, we\'re going to take
this, we\'re going to take this. We know it fits. There is no guesswork
involved for us.

And I don\'t believe that \-- we asked about eligible services in the
NPRM, but that\'s not a proposal that we made in the NPRM. But if
that\'s something that folks want, then they \-- you know, there is room
in the NPRM to say you didn\'t talk about this, but we also think this
would be a good idea.

Does that sound like what you were talking about?

MR. LUDWICK: I believe it is.

So would that be \-- would that be established for the whole USF process
or just for the schools and libraries?

MS. JONES: The only parts of the USF process where people apply for
services besides schools and libraries is the rural health care, and
they basically have the same guidelines for what services are available
as the schools and libraries program. They don\'t get \-- for them it\'s
more telecom services to connect. But in the areas where there is
overlap the definitions are the same.

MR. LUDWICK: So would the database that would have to be established,
would that come out of the funds for the schools and libraries or would
that be built under some other funding?

MS. JONES: My understanding, and I\'m not \-- I guess I am not totally
prepared to answer that question. But my understanding is all the
administrative costs for running the program come out of the cap.

So to the extent that money is needed to establish a database, it would
come out of the 2.25 billion. For example, the money to pay the people
at USEC comes out of the 2.25 billion. It\'s very small, it\'s two
percent right now, the admin costs to run the program. But I don\'t know
how much establishing a database would cost.

MR. LUDWICK: Thank you.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. Dr. Segalman, Bob Segalman.

MR. SEGALMAN: Would you have to change the law if you wanted to use some
of that money for relay outreach?

MS. JONES: I\'m sorry. Explain to me what relay outreach is. I have a
sense of it being sort of video with the \-- okay, I don\'t know. Closed
captionings. I need to be educated as to what it is. Sorry.

MR. SEGALMAN: The people who are deaf use a TTY and talk to an operator
to make phone calls, who make phone calls for them. And people with
speech disabilities have a similar system.

MS. JONES: And you\'re asking if such systems could be supported under
the Universal Service Program for schools and libraries? Okay.

MR. SEGALMAN: Just the outreach.

MS. JONES: The outreach. I understood that part. I\'m just pondering to
think.

The program funds \-- the program funds hardware, it funds wires and
cables, and it doesn\'t fund outreach for the most part. So I think the
answer is no.

MS. ROOKER: You are very brave, Narda, because you are taking questions
that were totally outside the scope of what you were asked to speak
about, and we appreciate that.

MS. JONES: I certainly show my puzzlement on my face.

MS. ROOKER: That\'s okay. It\'s a two-way street. We will help you too.

Vernon has a question.

MR. JAMES: Not really a question but just a comment on the schools and
library program.

For rural America and for many tribes, it has been a doorway to the
outside world, outside the reservation for our school children. It has
created opportunities of greater learning, and I applaud FCC in
supporting this, and encouraging it, advocating on its behalf.

There is \-- there are concerns about the cost of this service, and I
think that those concerns are minor when it comes to what the end result
is of this service.

Thank you.

MS. ROOKER: That sounds like a recommendation to me. Thank you.

MS. JONES: Okay.

MS. ROOKER: Do we have other questions or comments for Narda?

(No response.)

MS. ROOKER: If not, I really would like to thank you, and you were very
brave in answering some of those questions.

(Applause.)

MS. ROOKER: Thank you very much.

Okay, the next item here is to come out with some discussion and
recommendations. Where do we want to start? Anybody want to jump in?

Well, certainly what I heard Vernon say was to encourage the
continuation.

Ah, sorry. Yes, David, please.

MR. POEHLMAN: They don\'t call me quick draw at all.

(Laughter.)

MR. POEHLMAN: Unlike Pam, I probably could have been here in 1966.

This is David Poehlman from the American Council of the Blind, and I
guess you will know my name by the end of the day too.

It occurs to me as I read the \-- as I read the NPRM awhile back when it
came out, and as I listened to Narda\'s discussion, talk on this issue,
that there are some infrastructures in place that almost prohibit
schools and libraries from functioning in manners that aren\'t
accessible, but that are provision that uses the ADA as a vehicle for
providing access in schools and libraries through the universal service
fund is something that certainly would be appropriate to have in that
process.

I wonder \-- I heard some horror stories about lots of systems going
into schools that were totally inaccessible and could never ever
possibly be made accessible the way they were constructed and wired and
so forth. Not wired necessary, because wiring didn\'t make a terrible
lot of difference.

But I also heard some stories about systems that went into schools, and
went immediately into the closet; had nothing to do with accessibility;
had to do with other things that are \-- that you find often when you
mix technology and people, fear and trepidation, and lack of
understanding and need for education.

And I am wondering if there has been put into alleviating that, and if
perhaps we might make a recommendation somehow to try to get some
education into this process so that when these \-- when these admiral
schools are delivered and installed, that they really do get used, and
that, you know, they are used effectively and appropriately.

MS. ROOKER: David, I don\'t know the answer to that, and unfortunately,
Narda has left, but I believe that she said earlier in her presentation
that one of the things that they required was that the schools lay out a
plan as to how they were going to provide the support for the computers,
including the technical know-how and so on.

Did I misunderstand that?

MS. WILLIAMS: They need a technology plan as part of the RFP process.

MS. ROOKER: So they do need a plan, that was what I thought.

Do you know anymore about what\'s required under it?

MS. WILLIAMS: I think the state department of education has
responsibility for certifying the particular school\'s technology plan,
and that has to be approved by the state in order for them to be
eligible.

MS. ROOKER: So, David, could it be that the horror stories you heard
were early on and not recent? In 1966, maybe?

(Laughter.)

MR. POEHLMAN: They were definitely early on. I am concerned though that
as technology advances it can be repeated. And yes, there is \-- there
are good technology plans out there, but they don\'t always reach the
classroom. They don\'t always reach the level where \-- you know, where
the rubber meets the road, and that\'s where my concern is.

MS. ROOKER: Well, I think you have expressed some very valid concerns.

Would you we want to make it a recommendation from the committee that
the FTC make certain that there are sound plans in place before
equipment is placed into schools so that the utilization will be there
and it won\'t end up in a closet? Does that make sense to the committee?

(No response.)

MS. ROOKER: Okay, then that will be one of our recommendations. Thank
you, David.

Vernon?

MR. JAMES: Vernon James. There is also concerns about goldplating. And
in fact, a comment was made about goldplating. I think we also need to
make sure that term \"goldplating\" \-- but, again, with the
recommendation that the program continue.

MS. ROOKER: Again, I think that\'s a very valid comment, and certainly,
we would want to think that our dollars are being used wisely, not just
install systems that are top of the line and never going to be really
utilized, is that accepted with the committee? Do you want to comment on
that, Matt?

MR. KATLENBACK: No, not really. But I would like to add something. I
think maybe the committee should apply the efforts and the intention of
the program, which is to, in a forward-thinking manner, deploy
technology to and improve the education of our school children in a
pro-active manner. I think that has been the underpinning of the program
and that\'s what we should we apply.

I think the second corollary to that is guidelines could be put in as we
go through that process to potentially address, maybe, some of the needs
of allocating it in a most efficient manner. But also, that we, as a
committee, should take into perspective how they could help allocate
some disability-access material so it may be put in a data base,
selections of products or technology which might help extend our program
in the community that we\'re going to serve.

MS. ROOKER: Your recommendation that we certainly encourage and support
the program is well-taken. The other part I\'ll have to sit down and
figure what you really were saying. My brain is getting a little dead at
this point.

Do we have any comments or discussion on that, Larry?

MR. GOLDBERG: Larry Goldberg. As been stated that when schools buy new
equipment, set up their internets, they have to have adequate training,
and by the same token, if there\'s going to be a new push, as it should
be, that the technology services they purchase are accessible. The
training on the accessible and assistance technology is essential as
well. Most teachers are having enough trouble operating the equipment
without knowing how to operate the adaptive equipment as well.

MS. ROOKER: I think that should be a recommendation as well, right? Does
the committee feel about that? Okay.

(No response.)

MS. ROOKER: All right. Do we have Shelley? You have a comment over here?

MS. NIXON:

MS. ROOKER: Okay. So you want to know if the ADA says that all computers
within a school system should be ADA compatible is that we\'re not
certain about that. Is that right?

MS. NIXON: Yes.

MS. ROOKER: Does anyone know the answer to that? Julie?

MS. CARROLL: Julie Carroll, ITTATC. The ADA does not require all
computers to have assisted technology. What it does require is that
program be accessible. So at some point throughout whatever program is
being affected, it would have to be accessible, but not every computer.

MS. NIXON: Okay.

MS. CARROLL: And I have to admit I have not read the inventory. So I
don\'t know if it alleges the idea, but also reversed in Section 508 and
Section 255, just the ADA. That\'s unfortunate.

What we\'re dealing with in the installation of these types of things
are more related to Section 508 and 255, which are the laws that require
technology access for people with disabilities. I don\'t know if it\'s
too late to recommend that those laws be referenced.

MS. ROOKER: I confess that I don\'t know those laws. Does anyone else
have comments that they want to make on that? I mean, Cliff, how does
the committee feel about it? Larry, do you want speak to that?

MR. GOLDBERG: I have a copy of the MPRM, but remember what was told to
us, you don\'t only have to find that there was in MPRM. In fact, the
MPRM only does reference ADA and some excellent comments by the National
Council on Disability. It also only references purchase of services for
which the school\'s library receive discounts. Now are they in
compliance with the ADA?

So even though the Service Fund will fund equipment and so forth. They
only ask the question about the services. But, again, that shouldn\'t
stop anyone from commenting on the full range and also, referencing
those other Acts.

MS. ROOKER: Yes, Julie?

MS. CARROLL: I would think that this committee would be concerned what
accessible telecommunications, and that\'s Section 255, and internet,
web access, computer software \-- those types of things were purchased
to ensure that they\'re accessible and have complied with Section 508.
It\'s also federal law. So I don\'t think there would be a uniformity or
consistency problem in the states.

MS. ROOKER: Is this a form of a recommendation?

MS. CARROLL: This is a recommendation.

MS. ROOKER: Okay.

MS. CARROLL: Universal Service Fund\'s also only expensed where Section
255 and Section 508 are being complied with.

MS. ROOKER: All right. Can we have a discussion on it, Ken?

MR. McELDOWNEY: Not on the recommendation.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. Do we have any discussions on Julie\'s \-- no?

(No verbal response.)

MS. ROOKER: Okay. We will make the recommendation. David Poehlman?
Fast-draw David as he says.

MR. POEHLMAN: The only comment I have is, and we can leave it to those
who work these things to decide, that it may not be possible for us to
ask that Section 508 be attached to this and just sort of raise that
flag.

MS. ROOKER: Does anyone have the answer to that?

(No verbal response.)

MS. ROOKER: Okay. Should we make that, as oppose to a comment, that it
may not be appropriate that we ask this, but we\'re asking it anyway?
Ask it anyway? Got you.

All right, then we\'ll scratch that. Do you have a comment on this,
Matt? Okay.

MR. KATLENBACK: Section 508 deals with the purchasing of products by the
federal government and making them accessible. It may not be appropriate
in this situation, but certainly it\'s in the spirit of what we\'re
trying to achieve.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. Ken?

MR. McELDOWNEY: I would think sort of \--

MS. ROOKER: Ken McEldowney.

MR. McELDOWNEY: I\'m sorry. Ken McEldowney. I would recommend that the
Commission, before they put out MPRMs in the future, make sure that, in
a sense, the MPRMs are complied with, not just ADA, but all other
relevant laws. I mean, just so \-- I just think that\'s important.

MS. ROOKER: We\'d like to see compliance by the federal government of
its own laws, is that what you\'re trying to say?

MR. McELDOWNEY: No, I\'m just saying in the future when the MPRMs are
issued, to make sure that they make reference to all relevant federal
laws; specifically, the ones dealing with people with disabilities.

MS. ROOKER: I don\'t think anybody has an issue with that, do you? All
right, thank you very much.

MR. JAMES: Vernon James. Just a point of clarification on the terms that
we use regarding the goldplating. We heard the exact information given
about schools with fiber optic, and perhaps it\'s not being used. But in
rural America \--I just want to point out that in rural America, schools
and libraries already have the same access to the same facilities that
metropolitan and urban areas enjoy.

So with that, you know, if it\'s going to be used, it should be there.
The kind of equipment that, if it\'s going to be used, should be there.

MS. ROOKER: Is that just a comment?

MR. McELDOWNEY: Well, put into that recommendation.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. All right, is that agreeable with everybody?

(No verbal response.)

MS. ROOKER: Any other comments or recommendations? Going once, going
twice. Okay.

Then let\'s move on to our next item of business, which is committee
business. Now according to our charter, it expires in November. We were
under a two-year charter and it\'s up to the committee to recommend to
the FCC whether or not we think we should continue.

We have to do this at least five months before the expiration date. So
at any rate that\'s the first order of business here is to make the
recommendation. Ken?

MR. McELDOWNEY: Yes, I think that, just speaking for myself, up until
this meeting there was a lot of trial and error and trying to figure out
what we wanted to be doing and things like that. But I just been
extremely pleased with this meeting.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you.

MR. McELDOWNEY: I think it\'s going to be shocking when we look at the
number of recommendations that came out of this. There are probably a
hundred times as many as we\'ve done in the first 18 months we\'ve been
in existence.

MS. ROOKER: That\'s right.

MR. McELDOWNEY: So I think, assuming that we continue to have Shirley\'s
excellent iron hand \-- I guess that should be a footnote in the
recommendation. I would strongly recommend that the Council continue.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. Thank you, Ken. Thank you for your comments, yes, and
I just wanted to say that the FTC has been wonderful in putting this
together. Scott, particularly, because I think it has been \-- it\'s
been really in response to the things that you\'ve said. It\'s been your
feedback to us that has given us the goals and the directions in which
we should meet, and I feel very good about today\'s meeting.

I have to say I\'m very, very thrilled with what we\'ve come out with.
Larry?

MR. GOLDBERG: I agree a lot of groundwork was done in the previous 18
months. I assume that all of these problems in this area won\'t be
solved by November.

MS. ROOKER: You don\'t think so?

MR. GOLDBERG: Just a guess, but I guess the one other question is, will
there be a process to bringing them within or holding them?

MS. ROOKER: Yes. We actually will be reconstitute in effect. I mean,
people will reapply to be on the committee. So it\'s like it\'s a kind
of rebirth. There maybe many people coming back on the committee, but it
will be a new process. Yes, I do think you\'re right. I think that we
really are just hitting our stride and I feel very good about that.
It\'s taken a while.

Susan Palmer?

MS. PALMER: So old does not define the people who were not here after
\'66?

MS. ROOKER: That\'s right.

(Laughter.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you for that clarification, Susan. I\'m going to have
a long time to live that one down. Just aged her mightily.

MR. JACOBS: Steve Jacobs. Is there a way to write in our recommendation
or could we form in this group to look at ways to fund participation for
consumers who may not be able to afford to this year on their own. I
know over the past two years that has not been the case.

MS. ROOKER: I can\'t really or shouldn\'t speak for the FCC, but I will.
I don\'t believe that there is money to bring people to the meeting. Now
whether or not someone within the committee would want to form a group,
and I know that you\'ve tried doing this, Dave, and I appreciate that
effort. If some of you want to volunteer to look into funding for it,
that would be wonderful, I think.

I don\'t know how you as a committee feel about doing this It would have
to be generated by the group. Anybody jumping out there?

MR. McELDOWNEY: I would say, as a recipient in the past, I think I
probably, as would others who\'s sort of lived outside the Beltway and
represent certain non-profit entities that sort of support is really
crucial.

I\'m not sure. I mean, I don\'t know whether, you know, if it could sort
of a general fund that includes both you paying for breakfast and lunch
as well as travel or I\'m not sure how it should be done. But I think
we\'re not talking about large sums of money and it\'s very possible
that some people around the table from various corporations either have
the authority to makes sort of donations to be able to handle this. I
purpose it as a total ad hoc basis that sort of rests on poor Steve\'s
shoulders.

MS. ROOKER: Well, Steve\'s been out there doing his best. Thank you,
Steve.

Perhaps, what we could do is to ask the committee members if you would
privately get in touch with me if you want to about this. I\'m not
volunteering myself as being the fundraising part. I\'m sorry. I just
can\'t do that or with Steve. Well, actually, put it to Steve. If you
would like to make some suggestions as to ways we might accomplish it,
we would greatly appreciate it because I think that Ken\'s point is very
valid. That many non-profit groups really do need some help in getting
here. I\'m just lucky that I live close by and can drive or at least
some times.

At any rate, do we have the \-- yes, David.

MR. POEHLMAN: Sorry. Do you want to finish your sentence?

MS. ROOKER: It probably wasn\'t anything.

MR. POEHLMAN: If we\'re going to a new topic \--

MS. ROOKER: No, actually, I was just going take a vote that we make a
\-- I was going to state that we make a unanimous recommendation to the
Commission that the committee continue.

MR. ELLIS: Shirley?

MS. ROOKER: Yes.

MR. ELLIS: A couple of paragraphs here. First of all, I\'m concerned
that it looks like half of them have gone, maybe even more than half of
them. But I\'m concerned that about this position for the bill, even I
agree with that one. People have been making a lot of recommendations,
just in the flow of things, that I\'m not sure represent the feelings of
everybody who was here at one point.

I do think we ought to get together in maybe a small group and have some
more long-term discussions about the things that went right with our
structure and the things that should be improved or should have been
involved in. But it would be good to have some kind of feedback
recommendation maybe about how we work as part of our recommendation to
continue this year.

MS. ROOKER: Actually, that\'s part of my next agenda item is to talk
about structure and how we might want to reformulate the committees or
whatever.

I have had some comments from you that you felt it\'s much more
constructive not having break out discussions that we did. That this
entire roundtable has been much more productive and useful. That was one
of the comments. But at any rate, given what Richard said, we do have a
unanimous recommendation to the Commission to the committee continue. So
that has been covered.

Then what we would do is to take Richard\'s recommendation and look at
ways we might want to restructure. How we may want to conduct our
business in the future. We will get the letter off the Commission so
that we do that well ahead of the deadline.

Rich, would you like to participate in setting up some sort of committee
to study structure and what it should look like in November?

MR. ELLIS: I\'m just a rookie.

(Simultaneous discussion.)

MR. ELLIS: I will answer your call to action.

(Laughter.)

MS. ROOKER: We are not a dating service.

MR. ELLIS: I will do this. I will make you happy on two scores. I will
pull myself off the other committee I voted myself into this morning,
and thereby reducing that size and I will take on this one and work with
anyone else who wants to join this endeavor.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you very much, Richard. I appreciate that.

Okay, where are we? All right. So we\'re going to continue. We\'re going
to make that recommendation. We\'re going to look at the restructuring
and the way it should be. The other thing is we want suggestions on
agenda items. Some of the things that we were thinking about \-- one
would be in June would be the Disability Subcommittee Report, which I
think they have done; the Life Line; the Universal Service Fees;
Predicted Dialers.

We\'re looking for input from you. You don\'t have to do it today, but
what we would like is suggestions. Everybody\'s got e-mails. Susan
Palmer?

MS. PALMER: Because of the timeliness of some of the issues we\'re
dealing with, I was wondering if you could also put a query maybe a
month prior to the meeting about topic items because who knows two
months from now there maybe another MPRM that\'s out there. There maybe
another issue and there maybe a time factor involved where we really
need to that at that meeting rather than a subsequent one.

MS. ROOKER: I think that\'s an excellent suggestion. So what we will do
is we\'ll take a look at what\'s going with the FCC and query everybody
in what they know there are issues that ought to be brought to the
table. Excellent suggestion.

Okay, Vernon?

MR. JAMES: Shirley, I\'d like to recommend that we also look at the
issue of spectrum.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. The issue of spectrum. I don\'t know what that means.

MR. JAMES: Availability.

MS. ROOKER: Moving right along here, we\'re going to finish early today.
Now do we have any other \-- Ken. Who are you?

MR. McELDOWNEY: Ken McEldowney. I\'ve got two points. One is that \--
and again, the list of recommendations maybe too burdensome this time,
but I think that one thing that might be very useful for the Council
would be to have some type of formal response back from the Commission
on the recommendations. It maybe too many this time. I\'m not sure. No,
it\'s not too many. Scott was sort of sinking into his chair, but I
think type of two-way feedback is very important.

The second thing is that I am not sure, and maybe Scott or somebody else
from the Commission could tell me, but when is the Commission expected
to make some decisions on the Life Line eligibility and definition
proceeding?

MS. ROOKER: He says he doesn\'t know. Do you want to elaborate?

MR. MARSHALL: No, I can\'t elaborate any further than that.

MS. ROOKER: He says he doesn\'t know and he can\'t elaborate.

MR. McELDOWNEY: I guess what I\'m saying is that if, in fact, the
Commission has not ruled on that and there is still an opportunity for
some feedback from the Council by the time of the June meeting that I\'d
like to have that on the agenda.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. Well, we\'ve got Life Line on there.

MR. McELDOWNEY: But what part of Life Line does it have on it, though?
Is it the procedures?

MS. ROOKER: I don\'t know what we\'re talking about. Wait a minute.

MR. McELDOWNEY: The Commission solicited comments. It was a MPRM. Was it
different or what?

MS. ROOKER: Let me let Scott talk to you.

MR. McELDOWNEY: Good idea. I think he\'s going to know more than I know
about it.

MR. MARSHALL: No, I think what Shirley is referring to is there is a
Life Line MPRM that is probably closed now, but we can still file
comments ex parte. I think I\'m correct about that. It has a \-- yes,
Dave?

MR. POEHLMAN: We will check the dates of when the item closed. If it has
closed or hasn\'t closed, we make sure we get that information out to
you so your comments will still be made. The idea that Shirley was
talking about Life Line link-up program that we have. We\'re sponsoring
an outreach program sometime the week of the 25th. So we want to get
input and information to all of you and also get your advice as we go
forward. But we can put both of those things on the agenda for the June
meeting.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you, Dan. We\'re wanting to talk about ways that all
of us as committee members can help publicize Lifeline because it\'s
under utilize and that is a concern with the FCC because we want to
reach out to more consumers and that was one of the issues.

Yes. We have Laura Ruby.

MS. RUBY: We\'re talking about the next meeting in June?

MS. ROOKER: That\'s correct, the end of June.

MS. RUBY: A bunch of us will be in town for a TTY forum and the Access
forum. I think it\'s the first week of June. And then a lot of us will
be in Seattle the last week of June for the SHHH forum. So I\'m
wondering if there is any way that we can either coordinate so that when
we all come in to the TTY forum and the Access forum that same week or
that you could make sure it\'s not the same week as that of SHHH forum.
Can we coordinate that?

MS. ROOKER: It can\'t be early June, but it could be in July. Does that
get a moan from Scott?

(No verbal response.)

MS. ROOKER: We can try. It can\'t be done early. There\'s a lot of
reasons for that. First off, it\'s too close. Bob?

MR. SEGELMAN: The big advantage of having it the very last week in June
is that it\'s at the end of the fiscal year and it\'s easy to get travel
money.

MS. ROOKER: That\'s a good point. Well, I\'m not sure that we can
resolve that question right now. Scott and I will have to take a look at
it and I can\'t promise you that it can be changed. I just don\'t know.

MS. RUBY: What if it\'s done the 27th and 28th?

MS. ROOKER: Yes. And November the 8th, which has been set some time ago.
I apologize if there\'s going to be conflicts. Unfortunately, that\'s
always the way of meetings I\'m afraid. But we\'ll try to minimize the
conflict. We will \-- Scott and I will talk about what we need to do to
get meet your concerns. Okay?

Any other items of business that we need to talk about? Yes, David?

MR. POEHLMAN: This is David Poehlman with the American Council of the
Blind for the final time today. I\'d like to raise an issue that is
burning and it must be dealt with today.

I would hope that the committee would make a recommendation that the FCC
not grant stay of moving \-- of the request not to move forward with the
descriptive video regulation, promulgation that has been requested by
several national organizations for broadcasting. Thanks.

MS. ROOKER: Okay. Do we have comments on this? Do we have the
representative from the television industry here?

(No verbal response.)

MR. TOBIAS: I\'m Jim Tobias. The FCC really is due to make a decision on
that momentarily and the indications are that it\'s unlikely that they
would issue the stay, but we just don\'t know. Certainly, if this
committee would like to go record on that, it would be very, very
helpful.

As I mentioned earlier, some hundreds of letters have been generated by
this organization advising the FCC. I think, in addition to that,
however, is the court case coming up, which the committee could
recommend that the FCC vigorously defend its rulemaking on the video
description mandate because there are various levels of priorities that
the legal office has here and to hear from this group that you want to
see the FCC put a lot of effort behind defending their own rule would be
helpful. So both in the Petition for a Stay as well for the eventual
court case.

MS. ROOKER: Do we need to allow the industry representative to make
their comment. They\'re not here I don\'t believe. Does this mean if you
leave, you lose? Would it be fair?

MS. BRUNS: Actually, I don\'t like to comment about my issue, but I
don\'t think I would oppose.

MS. ROOKER: Oh, all right. Well, thank you. So then we can move forward
with that as a recommendation.

MR. ELLIS: I agree with this move, but I\'m again concerned that things
are getting thrown at us. We\'re making recommendations, but nobody ever
explains what the issue is. And I think that\'s probably true for half
of the recommendations today.

MS. ROOKER: Let me give you one thing. I think we are going to put
together all of this and send it out to the committee for comments
before we send anything to the FCC. We\'re going to put together the
recommendations and you will have ample opportunity to comment because I
don\'t think it would be fair. Because as you\'ve said, we\'ve done in a
great deal of pressure today and I wouldn\'t want to feel that just
because I have an iron fist that I don\'t have an agenda either. So I\'m
just trying to be clear.

MS. WILLIAMS: At the next meeting is it going to be a panel or
information gathering? I know that\'s maybe too late because of the
date, but I just feel like we need sort of entry \--

MS. ROOKER: On this issue?

MS. WILLIAMS; On this issue from the panel, are we requiring them to
proceed or \--

MS. ROOKER: There\'s enough time. It does seem to me that it would be
fair. Are there other industry representatives, Andrea, that are members
of this committee that are not here?

MS. WILLIAMS: I believe NAB is a member.

MS. ROOKER: They will have an opportunity to comment and to put in, if
they have concerns about it. Those will also be included as part of the
recommendation.

MS. WILLIAMS: Right. We might do the same.

MS. ROOKER: Yes. If there are negative comments on this \-- anything
that people disagree with, all positions will be represented in what we
put forth to the Commission. So it\'s not like we\'re trying to put a
particular spin on something. We want all opinions to be heard and they
will be coming in, and then there were these concerns. That\'s basically
what we\'re going to do.

So does that meet some of your concerns, Rich?

MR. ELLIS: It still sounds to me like we\'re ramming things through and
we\'re going to have comments afterwards.

MS. ROOKER: Right.

MR. ELLIS: Again, I disagree with his position, but it sounds like
we\'re ramming things through and then hoping people will come back and
respond later on. But we\'ve already had the discussion and we\'ve
already approved it as a committee. It doesn\'t sound like the follow-up
would have the same impact as the initial recommendation we\'re making.

MS. ROOKER: Well, the comments will be included. If there are comments
where people are disagreeing a position or recommendation. Let me tell
you what our pressures are. We have announced very specifically to make
comments and recommendations. And whether we want to make comments and
just say that we have two positions on this and there was no consensus.
We can do that or if there are areas were we have consensus, we can do
that. We can present opinions, whatever they might be.

So I don\'t know if that \-- I still don\'t see what you\'re saying. Who
had their hands up first, Paul?

MR. LUDWICK: I don\'t recall discussing the subject. Have we discussed
it or had any information on it? If we haven\'t, you\'re going to have
to not only have the two position of none of the above because \-- I
mean, if you don\'t understand the issue, the one that David just
brought up, how can you know if you\'re doing what\'s right or not?

MS. ROOKER: I think what was being said is that this is something
that\'s happening right away. And that; perhaps, it isn\'t appropriate
for us to talk about. Is that what I\'m hearing you say? Julie, go
ahead.

MS. CARROLL: There are certainly people here who can explain if people
need more information. That may be what we need to do. Also what was the
published end to date on this agenda \-- I mean, end time. I\'m sorry.

MS. ROOKER: Five.

MS. CARROLL: We\'re well within it. I\'m a little concerned about the
time that you people are committing being wasted by people who decide to
leave early. I mean, if everybody decides to leave early, that means the
rest of us can\'t conduct business?

MS. ROOKER: That\'s a good point, Julie.

MS. CARROLL: I mean, you\'ve got to decide one way or the other what
you\'re going to do.

MS. ROOKER: Well, I think that is one of the things that has to be
considered when the committee is restructure, too. If people don\'t have
the time to devote to it, then perhaps they shouldn\'t be on the
committee. Suzanne Palmer \-- Susan Palmer, excuse me.

MS. PALMER: I think moving forward, my suggestion earlier about having a
query before will help everybody with this problem in the future.

MS. ROOKER: Yes.

MS. PALMER: I\'d say for now I\'d probably propose some discussion at
least and when you represent a group on this committee that if you
can\'t be here, you have an alternate or something.

MS. ROOKER: That actually had been the requirement. Either that person
be here or someone as an alternate because we\'ve asked people weren\'t
able. Andrea?

MS. WILLIAMS: My concern is that I\'m not even sure we have a quorum.

MS. ROOKER: I think we probably should at this point not, because we
haven\'t discussed it, this issue that David has proposed, while it
probably has a lot of viability or merit, it\'s something that I
wouldn\'t feel comfortable with because I don\'t know anything about it.

SPEAKER: But do we have a quorum?

MS. ROOKER: But do we because we don\'t really have most of the people
here, a lot of the people here.

SPEAKER: For the public record.

MS. ROOKER: I don\'t know.

SPEAKER: If we don\'t, we have to end.

MS. ROOKER: Yes. Ken, you have a comment on it?

MR. McELDOWNEY: Yes, I guess it\'s a couple of things. One is I think
it\'s something that maybe this committee should probably think about is
that I volunteered to be on that committee. I guess it\'s a \-- we\'re
in sort of a murky area right now because \-- and I don\'t like the fact
that even though we come up with recommendations here, it will still go
out \-- I would think that it should go out to everybody, but only
people that participated in the meeting should be allowed to comment in
terms of either pro or con. Because otherwise you have people who are
not attending. Who are not benefitting from the discussion and then
suddenly deciding, you know, they didn\'t like the recommendation.

I guess the other thing I was going to say was what we may want to do on
\-- I\'m sorry. I also like the fact there will be that commentary
before it actually goes to the Commission. That being the case, it is
very possible the Davis recommendation would not go to the Commission
until it\'s too late anyway.

MS. ROOKER: That is possible because it\'s going to be a while before we
\-- it\'s going to be a couple of weeks, at least three weeks.

MR. McELDOWNEY: Yes, people need a comment period. I guess what I\'m
saying is I feel comfortable about there being recommendations sort of
coming from the floor that are not part of the agenda, but I think it
needs to be done far earlier in the meeting. Probably right before
lunch, right after lunch when people are much fresher. There is time.
There is space then to have some discussion pro and con in terms \--

MS. ROOKER: Well, what I think I\'m hearing from many of you is there is
a great deal of concern about us making any recommendations on this
issue. That we should just table it. Okay. Thank you. All right, Vernon?

MR. JAMES: Vernon James. I agree with Ken and I agree with the young
lady that\'s in this corner to my left. You know, my people put out a
good deal of expense for me to come down here and participate in this
meeting. And by gosh, if the people want to leave and they only down the
corner, I don\'t see why I\'ve got to be penalized or the people that I
represent have to be penalized for that.

If there is need for them to be a part of this Council, then they should
be here. I just don\'t find that comfortable either.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you. All right, do we have other unfinished business
that we need to discuss? Susan Palmer?

MS. PALMER: I just have one question back to that same topic. Is it of
value, even if there\'s not a recommendation, that there are discussions
on the topic. Assuming, moving forward, we\'ll have the topics ahead of
time and in a lot more detail, even if there is not a formal
recommendation from the group, is it of value to the FCC to hear
positions or not?

MS. ROOKER: I think it\'s always of value. At least that\'s the feeling
that I have from the FCC. That they want to hear opinions, whether it\'s
a recommendation or not, yes.

But now, having said that, what does that mean?

(Off mike.)

MS. ROOKER: Well, let me see. We do have time to discuss it if we want
to do that. Nancy?

NANCY: Is there anything procedural, you know, Roberts Rules of Order
that says that when you have a public hearing that you\'re going to have
an agenda that we make recommendations on that it has to be publish so
that people who are for or against it can be able to discuss it? I think
that\'s the only thing I\'m concerned about.

MS. ROOKER: I think you raise a valid point because it is a different
genre than if we were holding a bridge club meetings. There is some harm
and I think that there be given public notice that these issues are
going to be discussed. So that\'s entirely possible. I\'m just not
certain that \--

MS. LINKE-ELLIS: I\'m curious that wasn\'t on the agenda to begin with.

MS. WILLIAMS: This is Andrea. I think from a legal standpoint there
maybe an issue here because the federal advisory committee is suppose to
publish their agenda well in advance of the meeting for the opportunity
for notice and comment. Now by publishing your agenda and you then
discuss something there is not that notice of comment. You may run into
some issues with the Federal Advisory Committee Act as well as the
Commission\'s rules.

MR. MARSHALL: I\'m inclined to agree with Andrea. I know they have
generally published in the register is fairly broad before this final
agenda you have before has been developed. So there is the notice
requirement about we are talking about. On the other hand, it\'s a very
general notice requirement.

MS. ROOKER: Scott, you work for the government, right?

MR. MARSHALL: The FCC publication just said we\'ll talk about issues
about consumers and disabilities. It didn\'t publish this agenda within
the period. So I don\'t think this a barrier to discussing other issues
that are on the agenda today because people were given notice that
Homeland Security were on the agenda.

MS. ROOKER: But you still understand the problem is that these
recommendations, comments, or whatever are not going to get to the
Commission for some time because they have to be recommended by the
group or at least run by the group and it\'s going to be several weeks
before we get the transcript so that we can actually move forward with
getting the minutes and the recommendations.

MR. MARSHALL: There\'s an oral period on this case on September 6th.

MS. ROOKER: Oh, in September. I thought you were talking about something
that was happening immediately.

MR. MARSHALL: There was an immediate stay and there was a court case
where the decision could be argued in court and then the oral arguments
on September 6th.

MS. ROOKER: So there is validity for our discussion, should we have
time? All right. Do we want to discuss this? I mean, it\'s up to you
all.

Again, why don\'t we do that so we can have presentations and,
hopefully, more people who are members are here. Since we agree we\'re
not going to make it for any immediate information. Paul Schroeder?

MR. SCHROEDER: Paul Schroeder. Certainly, having something on the June
agenda might be appropriate, although, at that point it really is in the
courts. I\'m not sure we have a role really to play. The question is, do
we have a role to play now and then, look, I\'ll confess to one bit of
uneasiness, and the people across the room will shoot me for this, but
this is the way I feel.

I don\'t want us to become a committee where the wrestling match becomes
how many people can we get at the table to vote one way or the other
against each other. I mean, the idea is that we work together. Having
said that, what is being asked for here is to remind the Commission that
it\'s the usual code of practice in these kinds of instances is to not
grant the stay for somebody that has taken the case to court and is now
awaiting a court decision. The FCC typically does not grant a stay.

I mean, I think that\'s a pretty standard practice. I think what the
intent was for this committee to go on record to suggest to the
Commission that they thought this presents on differences than any other
case where a suit is in court and a party has gone to the Commission to
ask for a stay. And there is no reason to grant the stay here any more
than it would be in most other circumstances.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you, Paul. That\'s an interesting perspective. Andrea
Williams?

MS. WILLIAMS: I\'m a lawyer and I must tell you I\'m feeling very, very
uncomfortable in terms of us going forward discussing items that, first
of all, I have no knowledge of and secondly, you\'re asking me to
sign-up to agree with something that I don\'t think has been \-- I
don\'t believe it\'s not has been adequately \--

I don\'t want this committee to also to be in a situation where the
recommendation we make to the FCC is basically not looked at because of
some procedural flaw because someone didn\'t take the time to go get an
opinion or whatever from OGC upstairs to find out whether we need to
give public notice on this. I feel very uncomfortable voting on
something like that.

MS. ROOKER: Well, I tend to agree with Andrea in this sense, and this is
as an individual, not as the chair, and that it\'s not a subject that I
fully understand what\'s happening. I also have some reservations. But I
say that as an individual member of the committee. Steve?

MR. JACOBS: Shirley, it\'s probably not permitted to have open
discussions just an open time. So why don\'t we do that and not express
an opinion because Vernon made a good point. We\'re all here. We all are
absorbing new things and think somebody here has the capacity to help us
understand this issue.

MS. ROOKER: I don\'t have a problem with that at all. Paul Schroeder,
you seem to be very conversant with this and Jim Tobias \-- the new Jim
Tobias. And then, Paul if you want to follow-up and add anything to what
Jim has to say.

MR. BOWEN: The Telecom Act of \'96 had a mandate quite clear to have
close captioning on all TV programs. The FCC took up that rule, passed
it and it\'s now in effect. They also had a recommendation that video
description also be studied to make it more widely available.

After many years of study, the FCC issued a notice of proposed
rulemaking and took comments and eventually decided that a limited
number of TV programs on the commercial networks as well as prime time
cable networks have five hours a week of \-- four hours a week of
described programming.

That was petitioned for reconsideration. That was filed by industry and
one blind organization that was denied. So the rules went into effect.
It began April 1st of this year. The industry finally decided to take
the whole rule to court and file briefs on that matter and then very
recently asked for a stay of the rule while the court case is pending.

They\'re filing their objections based on some major issues that the FCC
exceeded their jurisdiction as well as made a rule that violates First
Amendment.

On the defendant\'s side is, of course, the FCC. Intervenors on the case
include a group called the National Television Access Coalition, which
is made up of the other blinded organizations and other involved parties
and Blinded Veterans ACB, the Washington Ear, AFD.

So there are two proceedings right now. One is the petition of a stay of
the rules so they don\'t go into effect April 1st and the other is the
court case where briefs have been filed and that process is going
forward.

MS. ROOKER: Who actually wrote the stay?

MR. BOWEN: The Motion Picture Association of America along with the
National Association of Broadcasters, the National Cable Television
Association and the National Federation of the Blind. And by the way,
does anyone not know what video description is? You\'re too embarrassed
to say it anyway.

Much the way closed caption provides a visual version of the audio of
the TV program, video description provides an oral version of what\'s
seen to provide a description of key visual elements in a TV program so
that if you can\'t see, you will hear what\'s going on, and these
description are written so that they appear in between the dialogue on a
television program and delivered by a broadcast cable or satellite on
the sub-channel, the extra audio channel that is available on all stereo
televisions.

MS. ROOKER: Can you remind us why the National Federation took the
position that they did?

MR. BOWEN: You want me to sit here and explain their position? Yes, I
can do that. They believe the FCC did not take into account all legal
preferences of the blindness field and they also believe that the FCC
should have ruled primarily and solely on the issue of access to
on-screen graphics. That being any kind of printed text on the screen
should have been only thing the FCC decided on.

MR. SCHROEDER: Paul Schroeder. That was very good, Larry and very clear,
Jim.

The only thing I would add is the business about who filed what
notwithstanding, I want to go back to what I said before. The court case
is going to proceed, obviously, no matter what we do and no one
suggesting we take a stance on that, although it\'s worthy to have a
stance. But I think what is being suggested here is that the Commission
stick to its decision.

As I said, as I understand it that it normally would do in a case like
this and not bring a stay simply because a party has taken something to
court. Otherwise, there would be very few rules ever to go into effect
over here because virtually everything gets challenged at some level and
we would have chaos at the Commission.

So I think to keep \-- Larry described exactly what the larger legal
environment and the situation is, but I think this is really a
relatively straightforward question that we\'re trying to talk about as
a committee here about what this Commission should do with this
particular position.

MS. ROOKER: What\'s the First Amendment, Freedom of Speech, I assume?

MR. BOWEN: Compelled speech. That people should not be forced to say or
do something. In terms of the stay, it has been common practice at the
FCC to let the case proceed unless there is some emergency that requires
\-- now in this case it\'s quite interesting because when the Commission
did decide to issue this mandate, Sherman Powell, the assistant
commissioner opposed the mandate.

Even to that extent, he has stated that any number of the rules that
were enacted before he became chairman still need to be defended by the
FCC. As courtesy and common practice that the FCC defend their own
decisions and that includes defending in court.

MS. ROOKER: Is there some inclination that the FCC wouldn\'t furiously
defend its position in the Supreme Court?

MR. BOWEN: Not the Supreme Court, District Court.

MS. ROOKER: Oh, it\'s in the District Court?

MR. BOWEN: It was a three to two vote on the rule and now the Commission
is reconstituted and there are new members. And now one of the nay votes
is the chairman and he gets to determine where the resources of the
Commission get put and there are quite a few court cases pending.

MS. ROOKER: Does anyone have any questions or comments? Thank you for
giving us insight. Julie?

MS. CARROLL: Just one question. Someone said earlier today that there
were hundreds of letters submitted on an issue and I think this might
have been the issue. The letters have some how not made it to where
they\'re suppose to be in the FCC. Did I understand that correctly?

MS. ROOKER: No, I thought those were complaints.

MR. BOWEN: These were letters by intervenors on this case. Ostensively,
more than 300 actually. Mostly generated by ACB, were supposedly sent
over here. But no one on the staff here seems to have seen or heard of
them. That\'s a concern.

Now there\'s a chance that they were not sent that way. We certainly
should follow-up with Charlie Proctor at the ACB. But it was announced
very publicly that, that many letters were copied both to the ACB and to
the FCC.

MS. ROOKER: Actually, I think this morning they were referring to some
consumer complaints. No?

MR. GOLDBERG: On this particular issue, we\'re talking this large number
and if Charlie tells everyone to write to the chairman and they\'re
outside the chairman\'s office? It\'s possible. I don\'t know.

MR. MARSHALL: The fact of the matter is we\'re still having trouble
getting mail here as a result of the anthrax scare. We normally get
about 3000 pieces a week. I think the last e-mail I saw we were getting
sometimes 1500 pieces a day maybe. I think it\'s best, if anybody\'s
going to be writing to us, that they deliver it and not go through the
U.S. mail service until it\'s more stabilized because it\'s not stable
at the moment.

MR. GOLDBERG: Just one more thing.

MS. ROOKER: Sure.

MR. GOLDBERG: Just to round out the picture. One of the First Amendment
arguments, if accepted by the court, could actually put into threat the
closed captioning rules as well. They seem to be arguing that\'s also
compelled speech. And I know that as much as closed captioning is deeply
ingrained and widely pervasive, people would have real issues about
that.

MS. ROOKER: David?

MR. PALMER: Since we\'re rounding things out, I thought I would add \--
David Palmer from American Council of Audit. I thought I had finished
speaking, but the rule calls for four hours of programming per weeks,
roughly. Kind of like a pilot putting a tail on the water gun. But the
other part of this is that one of the industry complaints is that it
would cost lots and lots and lots of money to do this and they\'d have
to do a lot of re-tolling and so forth and so on in order to accommodate
the ruling and that\'s part of their resistance.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you, David. Do we have any other comments or do we
have questions for them? Okay. Well, I think we\'re going to go to \--
Paul Schroeder?

MR. SCHROEDER: Are we moving on to other topics?

MS. ROOKER: We were going to move on to the public discussion.

MR. SCHROEDER: I just wanted to raise one thing. And maybe it came up
this morning, so I apologize if I missed it. But it would have been
great today to have an opportunity to discuss this wire line broadband
internet access bill, I noticed the FCC came out last month, 0240, but
we didn\'t have that chance.

But it strikes me that, that might be a good topic for \-- we kind of
danced around net services, intro services and broadband in the past,
but there\'s a couple ways in which we need to have flexibility in that
context in general in services. And two, what the impact of some of
these efforts, both at the FCC, but also legislatively that will
possibly come over here because if they go pass a certain interval. What
the impact of moving services \-- telecom into that environment means
for something like Section 255.

We\'ve kind of danced around this topic, but I think we ought to have a
specific conversation and it might be nice to even have some of the
subject-matter experts from the floor join us if they can because I
think they need to be a party to this conversation.

MS. ROOKER: I think that\'s an excellent suggestion, Paul. I think we
can do that. Right, Scott? We can try? We probably will have to
prioritize some of the things that we go into more critical. This being
one that would probably go to the top of the list.

MR. WILLIAMS: It\'s one of the chairman\'s priorities?

MS. ROOKER: Yes, it is. That\'s very true. Very true. If there is no
other comments to our members, I would like to turn it over to our
public attendees.

First off, though, I would like to thank all of you for your lively
discussions today. It\'s been very interesting and certainly thank the
FCC for being here, the chairman and David. I don\'t know if anyone is
still here. Dave was here just a few minutes ago. But at any rate, I
think we all appreciate the time that they\'ve spent giving us some
education. Certainly, giving me an education.

So I would like to turn the microphone over to our public members if
there is anyone here that would like to make comments.

MR. BAGUIS: I\'m David Baguis. I\'m with the U.S. Access Board and I
have a couple of suggestions.

One is that you turn from multiple representatives of the FCC today
which was appropriate. But there has been some moments in your
discussions when you talked about ADA and Section 508. So you may want
to consider in your future meetings bringing in representatives from
other government agencies who might be able to provide you with
information to facilitate your discussions that will eventually result
in your making recommendations.

MS. ROOKER: A good suggestion.

MR. BAGUIS: For example, the Access Board can certainly speak on Section
508. For those of you who aren\'t sighted, I\'m holding a bulletin that
says \"Ask Me About Section 508.\"

My other comment is with regard to Section 508. It was anticipated that
Section 508 would result in improvements in accessible design of
telecommunications. So it certainly is very relevant to the interest of
this group. And my suggestion is that you encourage the FCC to
participate more actively in some of the 508 federal activities;
specifically, something called the 508 Working Group, which meets about
once every two weeks at a conference room in the Access Board\'s
building.

There\'s a large number of federal agencies who are part of that
meeting. For example, the Department of Justice, Department of Defense,
Treasury, Office of Management and Budget, GSA and many others. The
presence of the FCC is very much missed at those meeting where we do
discuss issues that are very similar to the same things you talked about
today, such as wireless copulating with telecommunication devices.

There are other meetings that they may want to be more active, such as
the Accessibility Forum. For those of you who aren\'t familiar with
that, just go to Accessibility Forum.org. So to be more specific,
though, in that written edition, that you encourage the FCC to appoint a
high level person to participate in those meetings. Thank you.

MS. ROOKER: Thank you, David. Do we have other public comments?

(No verbal response.)

MS. ROOKER: No? Well, if not, I would like to thank all of you for being
here today. I declare us adjourned.

(Whereupon, at 4:35 p.m., the meeting was concluded.)

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**[REPORTER\'S CERTIFICATE]{.underline}**

**FCC DOCKET NO.**: N/A

**CASE TITLE**: CONSUMER/DISABILITY TELECOMMUNICATIONS

ADVISORY MEETING

**HEARING DATE**: March 15, 2002

**LOCATION**: Washington, DC

I hereby certify that the proceedings and evidence are contained fully
and accurately on the tapes and notes reported by me at the hearing in
the above case before the Federal Communications Commission.

Date: \_3/15/02\_\_
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

Trevor Good

Official Reporter

Heritage Reporting Corporation

1220 L Street, N.W., Suite 600

Washington, D.C. 20005-4018

**[TRANSCRIBER\'S CERTIFICATE]{.underline}**

I hereby certify that the proceedings and evidence were fully and
accurately transcribed from the tapes and notes provided by the above
named reporter in the above case before the Federal Communications
Commission.

Date: \_3/15/02\_\_
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

Joyce Boe

Official Transcriber

Heritage Reporting Corporation

**[PROOFREADER\'S CERTIFICATE]{.underline}**

I hereby certify that the transcript of the proceedings and evidence in
the above referenced case that was held before the Federal
Communications Commission was proofread on the date specified below.

Date: \_3/15/02\_\_
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

Lorenzo Jones

Official Proofreader

Heritage Reporting Corporation