Thread Subject: Re: TTYs

Note

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From: Karen Peltz Strauss
Date: Tue, Jan 09 2007 3:40 PM

Unfortunately, no federal agency effectively followed up on implementation
of the sections of the Telecommunications Accessibility Enhancement Act that
dealt with widespread TTY accessibility. As you know, this Act led to the
federal relay, a TTY logo, and a federal TTY directory. It also directed
GSA, in consultation with the Access Board, the Interagency Committee on
Computer Support of Handicapped Employees, and affected federal agencies, to
issue rules to make the federal telecom system fully accessible to people
with speech and hearing disabilities. I do not believe rules achieving
this are in place (at least I could not find any). They existed a long time
ago, and then were withdrawn and never replaced. There may, however, be a
federal TTY directory somewhere - GSA would be the agency to ask.

Karen

----- Original Message -----
From: < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
To: < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Sent: Tuesday, January 09, 2007 12:46 PM
Subject: Re: [teitac-telecom] TTYs


>
> Maybe Karen could comment as to whether we have another policy dilemma
> regarding TTY, due to the TElecom Accessibility Enhancement
> Act of 1988?
>
> Whoever is responsible for that law might be able to assess the extent to
> which TTY is used in government. I suspect it is
> minimal but there are people calling in on TTY to some agencies, like the
> social security admin. Also could be true in VR
> agencies in states that may adopt 508. These are deaf people in the
> general population, of limited resources. If TTY is dead in
> these agencies as well, that would be a reassuring factor about moving on.
>
> Believe me, I want to move on too... but even setting a timetable should
> involve some more input from government people about
> what is being used. Ditto on the extent to which people are being blocked
> from using videophones or captel or even commercial IM.
>
> Judy Harkins
>
>
>
>
>
> ------- Original Message -------
>>From : Gregg Vanderheiden[mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ]
> Sent : 1/9/2007 10:49:29 AM
> To : = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
> Cc :
> Subject : RE: Re: [teitac-telecom] TTYs
>
> Ah,
>
> I see you were starting with the assumption that all Gov would be IP
> therefore only need to think about the IP side. That's interesting.
> There
> are government outposts all over the US including ranger stations etc.
> But
> I think that it is likely that all will have IP or it will be something
> like
> a ranger tower and no something we need to address (probably communicate
> by
> radio for example).
>
> So I think for 508 we may indeed be able to forget TTY. Interesting.
>
> We still have 255 though to thing about. And that is everyone's phone.
> So
> for 255 we still have to think of what to do for analog phones (and people
> who have them).
>
> I think we should consider guidelines that says
>
> For PSTN products - blah blah blah
> For IP based telecom products - IP text etc.
>
>
> I still would like to find some way of retiring TTYs either now or when
> their number gets small enough that they are more trouble to accommodate
> than useful. Anyone interested in exploring that technical, logistical
> problem contact me offline (don't want to tie up this list). But it would
> be very nice to figure out how to retire them now that it is a matter of
> attrition - with no viable solution for PSTN. Something that would
> eliminate the gateway problem would be very welcome by industry.
>
>
> RE at IP Text standard.
>
> Actually - there is agreement for SIP based telephony (which is what VoIP
> is
> predominantly). T-140. There are a pair of complementary transport
> protocols being discussed. Audio/t140 and Text/140. both are T-140 and
> both are sent digital. Audio/t140 just has its packets labeled as audio
> even though they are text - for technical reasons.
>
> For this group - I think we can just talk about using T-140 and wait a bit
> before we specify the transport protocol.
>
> ALSO we may use the sufficient method here.
>
>
> Finally, we should also allow any reliable code and transport to be used
> on
> a closed system as long as it is translated to T-140 in the standard
> protocol when it hits the open IP network.
>
>
>
>
> Gregg
> -- ------------------------------
> Gregg C Vanderheiden Ph.D.
>
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
>> [ mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf Of
>> Jim Tobias
>> Sent: Tuesday, January 09, 2007 4:58 AM
>> To: 'TEITAC Telecommunications Subcommittee'
>> Subject: Re: [teitac-telecom] TTYs
>>
>> Gregg wrote:
>> > Don't understand. The gateway is between two things.
>> > usually in these
>> > discussions it is between IP and PSTN. The gateway can
>> > keep TTY from
>> > getting on to the IP network (where IP text should be used).
>>
>> Gateway: PSTN TTY on one side; IP text on the other. Gateway
>> must also accomplish call supervision and call routing.
>> Agencies could choose to have their own gateway, or use a
>> federal-wide or public gateway.
>>
>> Another wrinkle Paul explained to us yesterday is the fact
>> that there is no agreement yet on what IP text protocol to
>> use. If our recommended regs stick to a functional
>> description -- saying only that IP text needs to be
>> transported between the gateway and the agency's system -- we
>> can ignore the protocol issue. Let's say that different
>> agencies select different protocols. Then the gateway can,
>> based on what "number" is requested by the TTY user on the
>> outside PSTN, send the IP traffic consistent with that
>> agency's choice.
>>
>> Gregg wrote:
>> > But you still have to use TTY on the PSTN as long as there
>> is a PSTN.
>> > No?
>>
>> Are you referring to general public practices, or what
>> federal agencies are doing?
>> Agencies are obviously free to purchase new analog phone
>> systems, but I doubt any are doing this. This distinction
>> (actually, among 3 options: analog, non-IP digital, and
>> IP) can be represented in our recommended standards by
>> referring to the functional description ("transport text,
>> including protocol conversion if necessary") at the top
>> level, then indicating the sufficient techniques for all the
>> platforms.
>>
>> In the final analysis, a PSTN TTY gateway may be the best way
>> to smooth the migration path beyond Baudot, because it allows
>> the last TTY users to continue to use their preferred method,
>> but reduces the costs (direct and indirect) of compatibility
>> with the growing non-Baudot text world.
>>
>> (A back-of-the-envelope calculation of total TTY US traffic
>> in the busy hour shows that it could easily be accommodated
>> on a very small server indeed. As usual, there are much
>> bigger issues on the non-tech side: dialing plans, TRS
>> integration, etc.)
>>
>> Paul also briefed us on the international scene regarding the
>> many incompatible TTY protocols. To be a bit visionary, a
>> gateway could address this by simply translating
>> analog-to-analog protocols so the British and French deaf
>> communities could communicate more easily.
>>
>> ******
>> Jim Tobias
>> Inclusive Technologies
>> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
>> +1 732.441.0831 voice/tty
>> skype jimtobias
>> +1 908.907.2387 mobile
>>
>>
>>

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