Ofcom study examines telephony for deaf

Better telephony services for the deaf and hard of hearing are now far more likely to be put in place, according to TAG.

The consortium of the UK’s main deaf organisations said an answer by the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform to a written parliamentary question indicated that Ofcom understood the importance of using current and emerging technologies; these include captioned telephony, video relay and internet access to services.

Ruth Myers, TAG’s chairman, said: "The response by BERR to the parliamentary question posed by Rosie Cooper, MP for West Lancashire, is encouraging as there is a clear recognition by Government of the importance of the issue to deaf and hard-of-hearing people.

TAG said the results of a study that Ofcom had commissioned earlier this year are also expected to be published this month. The regulator examined the gap between services that are currently available (including the existing relay service, SMS, instant messaging and email) and potential services.

The study has also looked at the existing relay service Typetalk, which enables deaf or speech impaired people to have two-way telephone conversations with almost anyone.

Other services examined included captioned telephony – where the relay assistant re-voices one end of the call into captions using speech recognition technology – and video relay, which enables sign language users to communicate with hearing people in real time.

Another promising avenue, said TAG, is giving people access to text relay services via a PC with an internet connection.

TAG said such these services are used widely in some countries, such as Sweden, the USA and Australia.

It added that knowing Ofcom has stated that it would like to see the introduction of additional relay services would help put the deaf and hard of hearing on a more equal footing with hearing people.