H.R. 3101: Twenty-first Century Communications Act

Tue Aug 17 13:07:18 UTC 2010

This passed the House by 348-23

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-3101

<http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/100139-lawmakers-begin-push-to-extend-internet-services-to-disabled>

While much of the focus is on closed captioning, there are several other pieces of this that SPs might be interested in. Here are two that strike me :

SEC. 715. INTERNET PROTOCOL-BASED RELAY SERVICES.
‘Within one year after the date of enactment of the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010, each interconnected VoIP service provider and each provider of non-interconnected VoIP service shall participate in and contribute to the Telecommunications Relay Services Fund established in section 64.604(c)(5)(iii) of title 47, Code of Federal Regulations, as in effect on the date of enactment of such Act, in a manner prescribed by the Commission by regulation to provide for obligations of such providers that are consistent with and comparable to the obligations of other contributors to such Fund.’.

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SEC. 201. VIDEO PROGRAMMING AND EMERGENCY ACCESS ADVISORY COMMITTEE.
(e)

(2) VIDEO DESCRIPTION, EMERGENCY INFORMATION, USER INTERFACES, AND VIDEO PROGRAMMING GUIDES AND MENUS- Within 18 months after the date of enactment of this Act, the Advisory Committee shall develop and submit to the Commission a report that includes the following:

(A) An identification of the performance objectives for protocols, technical capabilities, and technical procedures needed to permit content providers, content distributors, Internet service providers, software developers, and device manufacturers to reliably encode, transport, receive, and render video descriptions of video programming and emergency information delivered using Internet protocol or digital broadcast television.

Regards
Marshall