What happened
Internet Protocol Captioned Telephone Service lets people with hearing loss read captions of their phone calls. The Interstate TRS Fund pays providers for each minute. The FCC ruled in 2018 that captions could come from automatic speech recognition alone, and from 2020 its Bureau certified providers to offer them. In an order adopted on 31 July 2024, the FCC analyzed cost reports from the five providers paid for the service in 2023. It found that allowable expenses averaged about $0.60 per minute for automatic captions in 2023, against $1.04 with communications assistants. Automatic captions carried 43.5% of compensable minutes in 2022, 74.6% in 2023 and a projected 84.5% in 2024. At the single rate of $1.30 per minute, automatic minutes earned a 116.7% operating margin in 2023. The FCC therefore set an automatic rate that falls from $1.17 to $0.95 per minute by 2026-27. It raised the assisted rate to $1.35. The FCC noted that some users still prefer assisted captions. It also noted that some research indicates that speech recognition may transcribe some voices less accurately.
Sources
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Regulatory document, by authors with no tie to the system.
For 2023, historical allowable expenses reported by providers average approximately $0.60 per minute for ASR-only IP CTS and $1.04 per minute for CA-assisted IP CTS, a cost difference of $0.44 per minute.
Once ASR-only service was introduced by most providers, it quickly became the most commonly used service mode—averaging 43.5% of compensable minutes in 2022, 74.6% in 2023, and a projected 84.5% in 2024.
Although the unit cost of producing captions is substantially lower when a CA is not involved, usage data show that some consumers continue to prefer CA-assisted captions when given a choice, and there also is evidence that, for some calls, CA-assisted captioning is still the most accurate method.
Details
AI system
- Workflow
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Every IP CTS provider was authorized to caption calls with speech recognition alone, under certifications issued from 2020. The TRS Fund paid one rate of $1.30 per minute for automatic and assisted captions until this order. Some providers let users choose the captioning method, and others chose it for them.
Money
- Kind of value
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Lower average allowable expense per minute of ASR-only IP CTS than of CA-assisted IP CTS in 2023
- Amount
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$0.44 per minute
- Recipients and payers
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IP CTS providers, and the Interstate TRS Fund through the lower ASR-only rate
Follow-up
- Conditions for replication
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Provider cost reports must be reliable enough to set rates on. Assisted captioning must remain available for calls where users prefer it or need it for accuracy.
Entry details
- Sector
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Telecommunications relay services / accessibility for people with hearing loss.
- Purpose
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IP CTS providers and their speech recognition vendors built fully automatic captioning to caption phone calls for people with hearing loss without a communications assistant.
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Cite this record
Peter H. Vartanian. (2026). Automatic phone captions cost $0.44 per minute less than assisted ones (AIBD-0998). Artificial Intelligence Benefits Database, edition of 1 November 2026. https://petervartanian.xyz/aibd/records/AIBD-0998.html (archived at https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/AADSII, version 7.0)