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The Video Programming Accessibility Advisory Committee has released its report to the FCC on closed captioning of IP-video programming (available here), as required by the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act passed last October.  As we explained earlier here, the Accessibility Act requires that, once a television program is published or exhibited on television with closed captions, any subsequent distribution of that programming on the Internet must include closed captions.

The Accessibility Act requires that the FCC revise its closed captioning rules within 6 months of the Committee's report, thus, new FCC closed captioning rules must be in place no later than January 13, 2012.  (The report is dated July 13, 2011, though it appears to have been released July 11.)  The report proposes the following compliance schedule based on the date the FCC's revised rules are published in the Federal Register:

• Within 6 months: programming that has been prerecorded and unedited for Internet distribution;
• Within 12 months: live and near-live programming
• Within 18 months: programming that has been prerecorded and substantially edited for Internet distribution.

In addition, the report sets forth the Committee's recommendations for performance objectives, technical requirements, and technical capabilities and procedures related to closed captioning on the Internet.   The report also contains a discussion on new technological developments such as emerging protocols and other innovations that may affect the delivery of Internet closed captioning in the future.

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UPDATE: The FCC has released its order and notice of proposed rulemaking regarding the issues discussed below.  Note also that the Commission has also requested comment on whether to revise the definition of "interconnected VoIP" to include calls made over any "Internet connection" (thus capturing VoIP calls over dial-up) and/or calls that connect to domestic telephone numbers (US E.164 numbers) rather than just the PSTN, which would cover calls made entirely over an IP-network.  The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, Third Report and Order and Second Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (FCC 11-107) is available for your reading pleasure here.

At this morning's Open Meeting, the FCC adopted a notice of proposed rulemaking seeking comment on whether to extend E911 rules for two-way interconnected VoIP providers to outbound-only interconnected VoIP services.  If adopted, many one-way VoIP services that have thus far avoided FCC "regulation" may soon be subject to federal E911 obligations.  And like all things regulatory, this could possibly open the door to additional regulatory obligations that have already eroded somewhat the concept that VoIP is an unregulated IP service, obligations such as CALEA, accessibility/disability, local number portability, and FCC discontinuance notice requirements.  Indeed, the FCC is already poised to release its final rules to extend new accessibility/disability rules, including FCC registration and TRS funding/reporting, on one-way interconnected VoIP services pursuant to the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act that was signed into law last October, which we discussed in detail here.

The rulemaking also seeks comment on how to improving automatic location information for VoIP 911 calls and other location-based technologies. The FCC also adopted a report and order revising location accuracy rules for wireless carriers.

At this time, the report and order and the proposed rulemaking have not yet been released.  For the time being,  additional information can be gleaned from the FCC's news release, available here.

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