TAG Telecoms CampaignLatest News April 2009 Deaf Telecoms press release here (pdf file, 123 kB) May 2008 TAG sees World Telecommunication and Information Society Day as a key turning point in its campaign April 2008 Deaf people calling for better telephone access “Deaf telecoms not yet in the 21st Century”, says TAG TAG telecoms Campaign Overview What exactly is TAG asking for? TAG telecoms Campaign OverviewTAG has launched a major campaign calling for better telecom services at fair prices for deaf people. Deaf people are falling behind hearing people in the ongoing telecoms revolution. Funds to modernise the RNID Typetalk relay service are not being provided even though better technologies exist. Services like video relay and captioned relay have been available only to a few people in the UK, although elsewhere in the world they are common. TAG urgently needs your support to help improve telecoms services for deaf people. What exactly is TAG asking for? TAG is asking Government, Parliament and Ofcom to ensure that the following are available before the end of 2008:
When the above demands are met, the impact on deaf people’s telephone use will be enormous. In particular, two services which have already been shown to make a huge impact on the lives of deaf people would be available: captioned relay and video relay. Captioned telephony Captioned telephony was available in the UK from 2002-2007 on a very limited basis. With two communication channels, speech recognition software to convert the relay operator’s voice into text, deaf people can read the conversations on their PCs or telephone displays with minimal delay and conversations can be at a natural pace. Captel, the only captioned relay service in the UK, was closed in December 2007 for funding reasons. Video Relay Video relay enables sign language users to communicate on the telephone through a sign language interpreter. The sign language user and interpreter interact via PCs and webcams or videophones and conversations can happen at a natural pace. Two services currently operate in the UK: Significan’t’s SignVideo service and a fledgling service in Scotland. Last year, video relay services run by the RNID and the BDA closed. back to top What you can do to help The key to the campaign is to make sure that the government is aware of what we want and why it is so important to the lives of deaf people. We are lobbying MPs of all parties while working with government departments and Ofcom.
Contact: tagcampaign@palam.co.uk back to top Close Window |