To correct some incorrect information on the part of Jerry Nelson/GoAmerica regarding the Philippines center. . .

1) A “good chunk” of IP-Relay traffic being routed through the Philippines by MCI is an exaggeration. A more accurate assessment would be 5-10% of the text-to-voice traffic during daytime hours; the majority of the calls were processed through Riverbank and Memphis call centers, including all voice-to-text My IP Relay calls. Thus, it’s quite likely that only a small percentage of any particular user’s IP-Relay calls have been handled in the Philippines in the past.

2) MCI’s center is not the same center Stellar Nordia is planning to use.

3) A rather large piece of misinformation has been circling regarding fraudulent calls. They’re reduced, not blocked, and there’s no guarantee that the volume of fraud calls won’t escalate again in the future. All relay providers, including MCI/Verizon, have been blocking calls identifiable as international in origin for well over a year at this point; GoAmerica has presumably been more aggressive in identifying attempts by con artists to hide their IP addresses, but this is unlikely to permanently stop or even reduce the fraud problem, just as past anti-fraud measures have met with only mixed success.

As far as this goes, should a large amount of fraud return once all the IP relay calls are routed out of the United States, GoAmerica will be doing quite well financially; cheaper center + more calls + no operators left to blab to the local media about the fraud problem = easy money. Perhaps I’m cynical on the last, but only time will tell. . .

That is a load of bullpoop. I was hired by MCI to do relay and we never had such a “training” happen.

While I am opposed to illegal immigration, I am a more ardent supporter of immigration reform. The long process of naturalisation is simply mind-boggling and intimidating as a citizen! The American dream should be offered to ALL without linguicism. Bilingualism, as I’ve said before, is a skill to be proud of! Seriously, America is not the only country in the world and folks need to recognise that there is a middle class in other countries, too, struggling to get by as we are. What do we offer to them? A lengthy immigration process that is not only tedious but unfair and bigotry against bilingualism.

As for outsourcing, I am opposed to this because the only goal of the companies is to save money by exploiting low standards. Outsourcing could prove to turn into globalisation - maintaining the number of jobs here AND bringing the American dream to other countries, boosting their economies and feelings about America - but instead, it only fosters cynicism among US middle class (rightly so) and an attitude that America is imperialistic in other countries - by exploiting the standards, by not learning their language, by not respecting their cultures. Tsk, tsk…

The personal attacks on RLM need to stop now.

Others - your opinions on globalization versus localization (if that’s the right word) are welcome. But please, no personal attacks (i.e., “racist!”) against each other. No need for that here.

It seems you don’t understand business world, not enough! ;-)

We enjoy our lives too. Enjoy yourself, too.