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(back) Sequel 7 - Autumn 2002 Typetalk's Relay Assist - available for everyone? BT's Big Button telephone 3G or not 3G - that is the question Deaf telecoms trends Video interpreting Award from the Community Fund Keeping operators out of text-to-text calls One-stop-shop equipment directory NDCS Technology Exhibition Typetalk's Relay Assist - available for everyone? Now that the old 0800 access numbers to RNID Typetalk have been withdrawn and the new BT TextDirect 18001 and 18002 numbers make calls a more automated process, Typetalk has introduced Relay Assist for callers who want or need operator help throughout their call or cannot use 18001/2. TAG welcomes Relay Assist, but asks: will everyone be able to use it? TextDirect was launched in July 2001 and more than 80% of users are now using the new 18001 and 18002 prefix numbers to make calls. Nonetheless, some customers would like to be able to ask the Typetalk Operator to help them with their call – right from the beginning. To meet this need, a new service called Relay Assist started on the 30 September 2002. Relay Assist should help people who want help throughout their call and also those who cannot dial the 18001/2 numbers from their own network. Calls using Relay Assist will be charged at the BT national rate, which takes effect as soon as you are connected to the Typetalk operator. All call charges will appear on your usual service provider’s telephone bill. TAG, however, is concerned that the new Relay Assist number will not be accessible to all callers. Ruth Myers, Chair of TAG, explains: “Because the Relay Assist number is an 0870 number, it seems that callers from payphones to mobiles and calls from fixed-line textphones to mobiles will not be able to use Relay Assist. Both of these types of calls are vital in enabling children and their parents to keep in touch with each other. It appears that some other categories of calls will also be excluded from Relay Assist – for example calls to competition lines using premium rate numbers and international calls. We have made Oftel aware of TAG’s concerns and they are very supportive. We will continue to lobby on behalf of deaf consumers for these restrictions to be overcome.” BT’s Big Button+ telephone now incorporates a BT answer ‘1571’ key allowing you to access your voicemail messages with the press of just one button. The phone is designed to benefit people who have sight, hearing or dexterity impairments. There has been a lot of press scepticism about 3G – the next generation of mobile phones. But Bill Pechey, a telecoms consultant and coopted TAG member, is more upbeat and looks forward to the benefits for deaf people. “3G networks will be launched later this year,” says Bill Pechey. “Mobile 3G handsets and terminals have been delayed, but should be available soon. All European 3G mobiles will have to work both on 3G networks and on the old GSM system because early on there will be inevitable gaps in the 3G network, and phones will switch automatically from one to the other without the user noticing.” For deaf people, the videophone prospects look promising: “If you are within range of the 3G network, you will be able to get pretty good video pictures – better than today’s ISDN videophones. Terminals for this will probably appear within the next year – but I don’t know what tariffs to expect.” 3G and BT TextDirect “3G will have no adverse effect on TextDirect interconnection,” says Bill. “In fact there are very encouraging signs about this as BT has made very significant reductions in its interconnection charges, thus removing one of the major barriers.” SMS “SMS will have a new competitor, MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service), which will allow messages to be sent like SMS but can include images, sound and video as well as text. In fact, MMS is operating now and many of the newer phones include it. One benefit is that there is no practical limit on the length of an MMS message - the old 160-character limit of SMS is gone.” Signing and lip-reading “Clearly, the real benefit of 3G for deaf people is two-way, real-time video. The improvement results from better video coding and higher data transmission rates. I expect that early terminals will be good enough for signing. Unfortunately, video good enough for lip-reading is probably some way off.” A straw poll taken by TAG at the NDCS Open Day in June showed that deaf people are using lots of different types of telecoms equipment and a very large proportion (44 of 54) use mobile phones – despite not being able to use them to their full potential. Thirty-two of the 54 people questioned used at least four different types of telecoms equipment and just under half had computers with modems. Interestingly, 80% of the computer users were men. SMS (text messaging on mobiles) has really taken off amongst deaf people – 39 said their use of SMS had increased over the past year. Meanwhile, many said they were using landlines and textphone back-to-back communication less. Usage of fax and Typetalk seems to have increased overall, but some people said they were using fax less often. Video interpreting. A new RNID trial across England With the severe shortage of British Sign Language interpreters in the UK and with a training period of at least six years, the communication future might seem bleak, but interpreting using a videophone is catching on and the RNID has just launched a Video Interpreting trial across England. Video Interpreting is specially suited for short notice, short duration, one-to-one assignments. It is not a replacement for face-to-face interpreting – some situations clearly benefit from the physical presence of an interpreter – but it can complement existing interpreting services. Fifty sites across England are taking part in an RNID Video Interpreting trial, an initiative supported financially by the Community Fund. The fifty sites will be in different types of settings – police stations, Citizen Advice Bureaux, social services, employment and medical information settings. Teams of RNID interpreters will be based at two purpose-built Video Interpreting centres in London and Manchester. How does the Video Interpreting service work? The deaf user sits in front of the videophone screen (which is adjustable so that users can ensure their signing is in the ‘frame’) and dials the Video Interpreter centre number with which they were supplied on booking. They are then connected and the assignment begins. Some changes are usually necessary when using a videophone – the deaf user probably has to sign a little more slowly than normal and when finger-spelling the palm must face the camera. Similarly, the hearing user will probably have to speak more slowly than usual. These become natural adjustments with experience. The service will take bookings of up to half an hour (longer sessions are usually more suited to face-to-face assignments) and the service is charged in ten minute units – so short assignments are now very cost effective. RNID will be looking at the service again after six months and it is hoped that it will help service providers throughout the country to supply a valuable service to its deaf users, clients and customers. In theory it could be offered by virtually any organisation offering services and could be seen as “a practical and reasonable adjustment” in terms of the Disability Discrimination Act. Anyone with a videophone – not just the fifty trial sites – can book a session with the RNID VI centres. The trial sites are listed on the web at: www.rnid.org.uk/video_interpreting To book a video interpreting session, contact Katharine Weller at RNID Tel/Text 020 7294 3720 Fax 020 7296 8069 Email: vis@rnid.org.uk Short interpreting assignments can now be cost effective with video interpreting. The main costs: videophones – from £600; ISDN telephone time – installation costs plus about 8p per minute in call charges; Sign language interpreting – approximately £30 per half hour. Keeping operators out of text-to-text calls A text-to-text option using a menu option within BT TextDirect is being tested because many users of TextDirect have been frustrated that sometimes during a text-to-text call an operator is brought into the call for no apparent reason. BT says that its investigations have shown that the operator intervention can happen for various reasons – the most common being a delay in putting the telephone handset into the cups of the receiving textphone. BT TextDirect “hears” a noise and thinks these calls are text-to-voice calls which require the assistance of an operator and informs the customer: “TXD operator connected”. Once the two textphones are connected, the operator drops out of the call, but their initial involvement makes some customers feel that the operator is watching over all text-to-text calls. Ruth Myers, Chair of TAG, said: “TAG has agreed to participate in the trial with an open mind although it believes that deaf people would prefer to see a different prefix such as 18003 used for text-to-text calls. TAG has been lobbying BT to introduce a new prefix for text-to-text calls to prevent the problem, but BT’s preferred way of ensuring that operators do not intervene is a “menu-based system” using the existing BT TextDirect prefix 18001. This menu solution is currently being tested by a small group of people and we look forward to seeing the results.” More details will be available once the trial has been assessed – expected some time in October or November 2002. Omnidirectory, a new – and the only independent – guide to technology designed for deaf people, has just been published by the National Deaf Children’s Society. Omnidirectory is a “one-stop-shop” for information about equipment and useful organisations for deaf and hard of hearing people in the UK. Featuring hundreds of items of equipment, Omnidirectory helps you to compare products and choose what is best for you. For each entry, Omnidirectory lists individual product features, price, manufacturer and supplier. A contacts section, arranged geographically, will help you to find full contact details for local services such as deaf schools, social services. The directory is not currently available on the Internet, but a web version is being considered. To receive a FREE copy of Omnidirectory, contact: The Directory Publishing Team, NDCS, 15 Dufferin Street, London EC1Y 8UR or email: directory@ndcs.org.uk. NDCS Technology Exhibition 20, 21 June 2003 at Telford (20th is Professionals’ & Conference Day, 21st is Family Fun Day). Contact: Helen Jones of NDCS on 020 7490 8656 (voice & text) or 020 7251 5020 (fax). |