The Federal Relay Service (FRS) was established under Public Law 100-542, of the Telecommunications Accessibility Act of 1988. FRS provides Communication Assistants (CAs) who act as intermediaries for telecommunications between hearing individuals and individuals who are deaf, hard-of-hearing, deaf-blind, and/or have speech disabilities.

FRS is a federal government service, which utilizes the FTS2001 network in order to allow federal employees who are deaf, hard-of-hearing, deaf/blind, or have speech disabilities equal communication access.  These employees use a Text-Telephone (TTY) to communicate with hearing federal employees who do not have a TTY.  Calls are relayed using specially trained CA's.  The CA acts as a transparent conduit for the transmittal of information.  The CA is simply relaying the conversation back and forth from the TTY user to the regular telephone user.  All calls are strictly confidential.

The FRS is accessible domestically (fifty states as well as Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, and the District of Columbia) 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year (including federal holidays).  There are no restrictions on the number, length, or type of calls.  All calls are strictly confidential and no records of conversations are maintained.