General News

Calling for change

A consortium of groups concerned with the rights of deaf people is lobbying hard for that community to have fuller access to telephone communications. Christopher Jones highlights some obstacles and solutions

I am one of up to 400,000 deaf and hard-of-hearing people who face daily barriers in using the telephone. Since the early 1990s we have been able to use Typetalk, a text relay service which uses operators as intermediaries between callers at no extra cost, but modern alternative relay services such as Video Relay Service (VRS) are available to only small numbers of deaf people in the UK and a Captioned Telephone Relay Service (CTRS) is no longer available at all.

These new types of relay services offer deaf people a telephone experience that is very similar to that experienced by hearing people. Calls using services like VRS and CTRS are increasingly computer-based and involve minimum delays. VRS uses interpreters and CTRS provides on-screen captions on computer screens. Both have a natural, smooth conversational flow that is also greatly appreciated by hearing people. I want to see services like these available 24/7 at no additional cost to that of a standard telephone call.

Unfortunately for British deaf people, several fledgling alternative relay services have folded because of a lack of funding. Neither regulation from Ofcom, the communications regulator, nor funding from government has yet been forthcoming to enable modernisation of telephone services for deaf people and there is no incentive for the current funders to develop new services.

The closure of the newer style services has often had detrimental effects on the careers of deaf people. One former CTRS user has to spend one day every week travelling to meet clients instead of just picking up the telephone. Another was promoted to being a European director on the strength of using CTRS, but is now struggling without it and has to use a palantypist one day a week for all of his phone calls.

Services such as VRS and CTRS enable career progression and better integration into a hearing society. Without them many deaf people face increasing isolation and have difficulty in reaching their full potential.

In some other countries deaf people are more fortunate. Swedish sign language users can sign into their smart phones and communicate with virtually anyone through the use of a video relay service. In the USA, hard-of-hearing, deafened and deaf people who have clear speech can speak directly and fluently with hearing people on all sorts of devices including the latest iPhones.

In the UK, we lag far behind. Americans can choose from six services, Swedes three and Australians four. The British have just the one โ€“ a text telephone relay service which is extremely valuable, but not keeping pace with technology.

TAG, a deaf consortium, is lobbying parliament for better services for deaf and hard-of-hearing people and welcomes your support.

- Christopher Jones is a member of TAG and a deaf telecoms specialist.

Additional Information

Country: United Kingdom of Great Britain
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Source: http://www.disabilitynow.org.uk/have-your-say/guest-column/calling-for-change/
When: 21/5/2009

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