The VRS calls are part of the government’s experiment on the future of visual communication which will not only benefit deaf people. That is my own assumption!

RLM

Why don’t you ask Congress why they are picking on Sorenson? Perhaps the overpayment of 180 million dollars in two years Sorenson received is an excellent reason.

By the way, if you think something is amiss with the other VRS companies, perhaps you could contact FCC and share your concerns. It will be to the best interests of the Deaf Community to see less corruptions with all the VRS companies.

This was posted on Ed’s alert – Take look at quote where it mentioned that FCC staff think deaf should pay for VRS service.

This might be reason for Sorenson to be on alert with audit company because of push by FCC staff.

Also Auditor company failed to show up to audit on June 16, 2008.

(Again post from ed’s alert)
Another Letter By Sorenson (16:53:41) :

Thursday, December 11, 2008, 12:14 am Eastern Time

SECOND UPDATED FLASH

Sorenson Responds to Allegations

Sorenson’s Press Release dated Dec. 9, 2008:

QUOTE:

Statement of Sorenson Communications, Inc.

On November 19, 2007, the five members of the Federal Communications Commission issued a unanimous decision to ensure that individuals who are deaf, hard-of-hearing or speech-impaired are able to participate fully in today’s connected society by obtaining the benefits of Telecommunications Relay Services (TRS). Unfortunately, the Majority Staff of the Committee on Energy and Commerce released a Report today that repeats the complaints of a disgruntled FCC employee who raised ill-founded questions about the unanimous decision of the FCC to support TRS.

Sorenson Communications and the other providers of TRS participated in an FCC proceeding that began in July 2006 and concluded in November 2007 con cerning compensation rates for all forms of TRS. Sorenson Communications and the other TRS providers submitted detailed information required by the FCC to the National Exchange Carriers Association (NECA), the administrator of the TRS fund, which included extensive data about historical costs and projected costs. The five members of the FCC relied on these submissions in their unanimous decision establishing new rate methodologies for all forms of TRS and establishing initial rates for each service.

Today’s Staff Report reprints excerpts of emails and memos from a discontented FCC staff person, whose views were rejected by the five members of the FCC. The Staff Report repeats the FCC staff person’s unsubstantiated, and ultimately discarded, assertions as if they were factual. The staffer’s quoted statements are factually inaccurate and ignore the voluminous filings of Sorenson and others, which do not support his conclusions. In fact, as the staffer’s emails reveal, he believes that the deaf should pay for video relay service (VRS); this view rejects the fundamental premise of the VRS program from the time the FCC authorized the service in 2000, that VRS consumers would be required to pay for the broadband service necessary for VRS but would not be charged for the video relay service. From the decision made unanimously by the FCC in November 2007, it is clear that the FCC Commissioners did not agree with the staffer’s characterization of the facts or with his c onclusions.

Sorenson Communications participated in the Inspector General/KPMG audit of TRS providers. While Sorenson expressed concern to the Inspector General and KPMG about the confidential treatment of financial information provided in the audit, and objected strenuously when the financial information of another provider was mistakenly published on the FCC’s website, Sorenson continued to participate in the audit. The KPMG auditors were expected at Sorenson’s headquarters on June 16, 2008 for the purpose of auditing the reporting system used by Sorenson for VRS minutes; Sorenson employees had prepared the information the auditors requested to review; and Sorenson employees were assembled ready to assist the auditors. As the attached letter describes, the KPMG auditors never arrived at Sorenson headquarters. Sorenson is proud of its system of reporting minutes of use of VRS to NECA and remains ready to cooperate with an audit.

Let me explain… You know V-Meeting? Everyone (HOVRS) rep(s) are required to show up for meeting via HOVRS interpreter? um, something’s fishy.. they’re using that to collect money from FCC. Um? Sounds fishy… um.. HOVRS used to be to provided people who need to use the internet, HOVRS was paying them for the internet, did u know that? back in 2005. “Brown Bag” shame on HOVRS. I think FCC should start to look at HOVRS because theyre doing a dirty job..

By the way, You know “The Z” from CSDVRS.. it was so nice, yes but sadly, their warranty limited to 6 months, not a year!!! If the device isn’t working after 6 months, you have to PAY a new one! Sad!!! Same goes for hovrs! I am not sure about viable..

While Sorenson warranty just a for life-time!!!

Plus I have spoke one of my friend who works for Sorenson. He said if they’re not been audited then why DID FCC still give them money?!?!? that doesn’t make sense to me.. Everyone needs to chill out and not pick on Sorenson because they’re giving out a free damn videophone but ofc, i forget that as a deaf community always being whine ON everything!! I am not surprised, next they’ll whine on CSDVRS and HOVRS!!

Interesting that the company receiving state or federal funds must undergo an audit every year. From the Congressional Report, Sorenson hadn’t been audited for the years of 2004, 2005, and 2006.

Any companies that received Federal or State dollars must go through an annual audit by an outside CPA Firm that has no ties to the company.
Normally, the outside CPA firm that will perform the audit will a send a formal letter to the company stating when they will be coming and what documents that they would like to see prepare before they arrive on site. Once on site, they will review all the documents that was asked to be prepare before their arrival and then start doing “Sampling data testing” to ensure that what was reported actually happen.

Normally, audit firms do not show up unannounce to start the audit unless some sort of criminal investigation is going on then it is a different story. I am sure in this case that FCC did notified Sorenson that they need to go through an annual audit with an outside CPA firm. Sorenson does have the right to choose whatever CPA firm they want based on how much it would cost and what they have to offer to make sure its meet the audit requirement set by the FCC.

The only information that needs to be release to the public in this case is

How many VRS Minutes did they occurred during the period being audited?

How much revenue was received from FCC for providing VRS service?

What were the expenses relating to VRS servcies?

I know that Sorenson is being very cooperative and they want to show how cooperative they are to the public. This letter was written in June after the saga.

Usually the auditors did not like to be scheduled in the advance, and wanted to show up immediately to see what kind of documents available. Sometimes many companies do want to prepare themselves for the visit, by preparing the documents. It is very possible that they want some of the documents redacted (crossed off with black ink), and the auditors did not want that.

So it is a possible conflict of perspectives.

My question remains, if Sorenson have nothing to hide, they can easily accommodate the auditors.

Is it because the data is confidential? How so? Why is that? The auditors wanted to see how the funds been spent. Is that confidential? How is that be?

I am very curious about this, so the federal funds been used for VRS, and why is this become a proprietary data?

Is Sorenson a private company using FEDERAL dollars?

Thinking here..
Amy

If so, this is suspicious.

Eventually we will find out the whole story.

The comment from last night was probably written with the assistance of Sorensen’s public relations department, with the intention of making Sorenson look good. It may leave out important details, like what you pointed out.

Thanks for sharing with us your perspective of this saga.

It is not the first time to read this comment, since it was posted at almost every blog available discussing about this matter.

Here’s my comment below:

I would like to respond to this commenter above, who identified as Sorenson Consumer Policy Board:

It is not the first time you posted this comment on this blog, you have posted exactly same comment to all kinds of blogs addressing to this issue. That is ’spamming’ and it is not appropriate.

According to your report, the auditors called and wanting to audit on May 27, 2008 and it appears to me that Sorenson was willing to accommodate with the auditors, and scheduled the visit in two weeks, instead of accommodating with these auditors immediately. Do you think these auditors wanted immediately without giving you two weeks in advance? That is highly possible.

Why two weeks? What is wrong of letting these auditors to come into your office and review the data available? Why scheduling for two weeks? That is little bit too suspicious.

I know that many companies do like to prepare for the visit, by preparing their offices, gathering data and documents, and presenting them before the auditors.

This letter was sent in June 24, 2008, after the initial call from OIG on May 27, 2008 wanting to audit.

It appears that both parties agreed on June 16th, that is two weeks from the first call. There were several phone calls confirming for the visit. Somehow it was cancelled by OIG.

Is there a reason why OIG cancelled the visit, because do they really want to see all kinds of data available that are unredacted?

According to the congressional report, it says:

“On April 10, 2008, KPMG reported to the FCC that Sorenson had denied the KPMG auditors access to the staff and systems necessary to conduct the audit, and refused to permit them to review the company’s unredacted financial statements for 2004, 2005, and 2006. KPMG was therefore unable to conduct the audit.”

That makes me wonder…