Thread Subject: Re: Working our way to common ground.

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From: Jim Tobias
Date: Thu, Jul 05 2007 6:50 AM

Karen,

I am not sure I understand your point here. You can't mean that because
hearing people can use voice phones that we must somehow make voice
communication usable by deaf people. There simply is no way that deaf
people can have exactly as many options as hearing people, because direct
voice communication is ruled out by deafness itself. (We have relay, but we
all agree that that is not comparable access.) So the issue really is
ubiquity -- deaf people must have access to text communication wherever
hearing people have access to voice communication. I certainly agree with
that.

So what is the best way to ensure "comparable ubiquity"? From a purely
economic perspective, you may agree that it would be far cheaper to
subsidize wireless text for every deaf person than to require text
capabilities in every telephone. We would want to ensure, for safety's sake,
redundant text terminals in airports, train stations, agency lobbies, etc.,
the way we now require TTYs where there are 4 or more payphones. We would
still probably save, socially speaking, 90% of the cost of adding text to
all phones. And you may also agree that the net benefit to the deaf user is
very high.

The problem is, how do we write a 508 provision that implements such a
scheme? All we seem able to do is require vendors to offer certain features
in all of their products.


***
Jim Tobias
Inclusive Technologies
+1.732.441.0831 v/tty
+1.908.907.2387 mobile
skype jimtobias




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From: Karen Peltz Strauss [mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ]
Sent: Thursday, July 05, 2007 9:15 AM
To: TEITAC Telecommunications Subcommittee
Subject: Re: [teitac-telecom] Working our way to common ground.


Paul,

The concern that I have with your message is that our society is still very
"phone-based" for day-to-day communications. Sure, those of us in our
workcircles may have blackberries, laptops, etc., but think about what the
average person uses to contact their plumbers, doctors, teachers, etc. They
use the phone as we have always known it. Think about your average day, and
what you use your phone for (as compared to e-mail or IM). Who do you call
because you know they are going to pick up by phone, rather than respond by
e-mail?

Think about the situation where you are in an airport and your flight has
been cancelled. You need to call the airline to make a new reservation; you
need to call the car service to change your pick up time; you need to call
relatives that might not be on e-mail or IM (e.g., senior citizens) to let
them know about your new plans. I know that as a hearing person, I have
relied on the phone for all of the above situations. Sure, I might be able
to change my flight on line, but again, what if I am an average person (not
a Beltway person) who does not carry around the Internet with me. I was in
Chicago last year, and my flight was cancelled at the last minute. An
entire plane-load of people needed to suddenly change their flights. What
did everyone do? They either ran over to the airline PHONE or got on their
cellPHONES to scramble to get the next flights out.

It seems to me that this is not an either/or situation. We hearing people
have the option of contacting people by phone or via pagers, IM, e-mail,
etc. There are times when the latter will work just fine, but there are as
many times that having access to a phone is just as important, and could be
critical. "Everything I see through these questions suggests that a deaf
person has to find and somehow interface with a "phone" in order to
communicate. My question is why? Why look for a phone? Why not enable the
deaf user to communicate independently of the phone?" I say, until we can
say this for hearing people, we should not say this for people who cannot
hear.

Karen

----- Original Message -----
From: Paul E. <mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > Jones
To: TEITAC Telecommunications <mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Subcommittee
Sent: Wednesday, July 04, 2007 8:49 AM
Subject: Re: [teitac-telecom] Working our way to common ground.

Gregg,

I did not see anything in the questions under "Group 1", but I also did not
see anything that encouraged use of other access methods.

Let me speak personally, as you can imagine I have given this a lot of
thought. Daily, the issue becomes more of a concern for me. If I were
entirely without hearing, I would not want to use a voice phone. It would
be useless to me. What I want is a means to communicate. Everything I see
through these questions suggests that a deaf person has to find and somehow
interface with a "phone" in order to communicate. My question is why? Why
look for a phone? Why not enable the deaf user to communicate independently
of the phone?

I would personally want to be able to use my mobile device (including Pocket
PC or Ultra Mobile PC). If I do not have such a device with me, I would
appreciate have some means of communicating, but I would not want to be tied
to a very horrible interface provided by a telephone. Phones simply are not
the best means of enabling text communication and I would personally like to
have another kind of device available to me.

So, while I'm not opposed to having text on the phone for the case where
nothing else is available, the danger I believe exists in focusing s much on
the phone is that a "phone" will be the only device I will generally have
available to me. Those I have worked with over the recent years have told
me repeatedly that they want something much better than the TTY devices they
have today and text on a phone does not satisfy those desires.

So, we should place some emphasis elsewhere, not just the phone. How can I
interconnect my text device with the network?

Paul


----- Original Message -----
From: Gregg <mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > Vanderheiden
To: 'TEITAC Telecommunications <mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Subcommittee'
Sent: Tuesday, July 03, 2007 12:31 PM
Subject: Re: [teitac-telecom] Working our way to common ground.


Hi Paul,



In the end, what we have is indeed goals pitted against the reality of what
technologies we have (from past, present and future). And in the end we
need to say specifically what we need to do.



But the list starts with upper level goals and works our way down so we can
see what we have or don't have at the bottom.



Starting with your group 1 comments





PJ: If a person is deaf, then why have text conversation only where a phone
exists?



GV: Where did you see anything that limited text conversation to places
where there were phones? The items below only said that, if there is a
phone that people who can talk are allowed to use, then people who are deaf
should be ABLE TO (not forced to) make a call from that phone or by
attaching something to the phone.



PJ: This seems like a carry-over from "old world" thinking where the user's
devices were required to interconnect with a physical telephone or telephone
line. Such a requirement does not exist with the IP world, as a user could
be connected anywhere. If my employer provides a wireless network and I
have a wireless text-capable device, should I not be able to use that
anywhere in the building?



GV: Yes you should. And the items below do not restrict this in any way.
But I would ask:

1) "If a person who speaks is able to use the phone in the lobby (so
they don't have to make a long distance call to call upstairs) shouldn't a
deaf person be able to ?

2) If a person is deaf and cannot afford a mobile phone, shouldn't
they be able to use the free phones that are available for voice users?

3) If a person is deaf and visiting a remote office, should they not
be able to use the phones there? (rather than incur charges on their
personal phone - or have to wait half a day to get authorization from a busy
system administrator (who must check with home office for authorization to
connect foreign devices) before they can connect their personal device to
the network.



There are always cases where the deaf person has no problem using their
personal device (that they or their company pays for). And for those people
we do not need regulations - and the proposed regulations do not affect
them. But for the rest, for the less well connected, for the majority that
are unemployed (section 255 or the public under 508) we need to be sure that
access is available.



PJ: Likewise, could I not use a text device at my desk or on a PC completely
independent of a voice device? Should I be forced to interface my text
device with a telephone?



GV: "Yes you certainly could" is the answer to both questions. And nowhere
is anyone preventing a person from using those options. So I'm not sure
where the question is coming from. Did you see something below that would
prevent you from doing what you liked?




Gregg
-- ------------------------------
Gregg C Vanderheiden Ph.D.






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From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
[mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf Of Paul E. Jones
Sent: Tuesday, July 03, 2007 8:15 AM
To: TEITAC Telecommunications Subcommittee
Subject: Re: [teitac-telecom] Working our way to common ground.

Gregg,



I really don't know how to comment on these different groups, since it seems
to have goals and objectives pitted against specific technologies. Given
what prompted this e-mail, I think it's probably important to first step
back and only focus on the high-level objectives. Then, we can discuss more
specific details. (But, I don't think specific protocols should ever be
specified in the law, since it means the law will either restrict the
industry as a side consequence or it will allow people to side-step the law
entirely, depending on it gets interpreted.)



Group 1 seems to present the desired objectives. So, let me comment the
first point.



If a person is deaf, then why have text conversation only where a phone
exists? This seems like a carry-over from "old world" thinking where the
user's devices were required to interconnect with a physical telephone or
telephone line. Such a requirement does not exist with the IP world, as a
user could be connected anywhere. If my employer provides a wireless
network and I have a wireless text-capable device, should I not be able to
use that anywhere in the building? Likewise, could I not use a text device
at my desk or on a PC completely independent of a voice device? Should I be
forced to interface my text device with a telephone?



Paul

----- Original Message -----

From: Gregg <mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > Vanderheiden

To: 'TEITAC <mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > Telecommunications
Subcommittee'

Sent: Monday, July 02, 2007 1:53 PM

Subject: [teitac-telecom] Working our way to common ground.





Below is a list of statements that I think we should walk down to find out
where we are all together and where we have differences.



I think it will be much easier to find final wording if we can figure out
what our agreements and differences are -- and then work on ways to address
the differences.



I am seeing too many proposals that break something when trying to fix
something else -- or that seem to fix the wrong thing. We won't get far
that way.





I would suggest we just ask for objections to the following statements - and
see how many we have consensus on - then work on the rest.



This will also help remind those less familiar with all of the aspects we
are covering.





I suspect we can go through the first items pretty quickly and will find our
differences down lower.




GROUP 1 Statements




1. People who are DEAF OR HARD OF HEARING

* should have reliable text conversation wherever people who speak and
hear have reliable voice conversation, either directly or via AT.



2. People who are DEAF AND CAN SPEAK

* should be able to use speech to send and text to receive
communication (either simultanously or alternately), either directly or via
AT.



3. People who are HARD OF HEARING

* should be able to use speech to send and speech and text together to
receive communication (either simultanously or alternately), either directly
or via AT.



4. People who CAN HEAR BUT CANNOT SPEAK OR SPEAK CLEARLY

* should be able to to use speech to receive and speech and text
together to send communication (either simultanously or alternately), either
directly or via AT.



5. People WITH DISABILITIES

* should not have to pay more to make phone calls than people without
disabilities. (Cost of AT hardware not included.)




GROUP 2 Statements




6. TTY (Baudot/TIA-825) is the only current method supported
universally in the US for text conversation on the PSTN



7. In the evolving PUBLIC IP phone system - we want to use Text Data
not TTY (or other ) audio tones to convey text.



8. IM is a valuable means of communication for everyone but particulaly
for people who are deaf.



9. IM is not real-time text. It is often near-realtime messaging.
But it is messaging. And it can be delayed in addition to normal messaging
delay (until 'enter').



10. Real-time conversation and IM are both valuable (to all
communicators) but fill different needs.

* IM is sometimes superior to real-time conversation.

* Other times real-time conversation is superior.

* IM is also used in place of real-time conversation when real-time
conversation is not possible for some reason.




GROUP 3 Statements




11. Real-time text communication should be as reliable as real-time
voice communication



12. Real-time text portion of a call should be as interoperable as
real-time voice portion.



13. There is no (interoperability) need to specify which real-time Text
Transport format is used WITHIN a SELF CONTAINED SYSTEM as long as the
format is reliable and supported by all components in the system.

* "Self-contained system" is a system where all of the terminals,
routers and servers are manufactured by or controlled by a single entity.


* A "Self-contained system" can include an Internet leg if both ends
terminate inside the "Self contained system".

* Where the self contained system connects to other systems - (see
below)



14. For two systems to interoperate (with real-time text) they must both
support some protocol between them.



15. For a system to interoperate with an UNKNOWN system - it must
support AT LEAST ONE format that is known to be SUPPORTED BY ALL OTHER
SYSTEMS.



16. RFC-4103 is the most commonly supported real-time text format for
SIP based IP Phone terminals connected directly to Foreign SIP Servers.

* Foreign SIP server is a server that is not owned by the same entity
that owns the terminal phone.



17. RFC-4103 and RFC-4351 are essentially identical except that

* RFC-4103 (also called text/t140) sends text data packets on "text"
channel that is separate from the audio data channel

* RFC-4351 (also called audio/t140c) sends text data packets on the
"audio" channel along with the audio packets. (But the text data is still
sent as T140 data, not as audio tones.)

i.
The use of a single channel is of benefit to PSTN gateways because it halves
the number of 'ports' that must be created to handle a call and the voice
and text are mixed on the PSTN side anyway

ii.
With RFC-4351 it is not possible to have simultaneous voice and text in one
direction (which is required for IP Captioned Telephone) without
creating/having an additional SSRC in the terminal device to keep the two
data streams separate.

iii.
RFC-4351 is one of the multiple options that can be used in meeting TIA-1001

* RFC-4351 has Intellectual Property claims against it from Cisco.
RFC-4103 also has soft Cisco claims but RFC-4013 is a minor update of
RFC-2793 which had no claims and RFC-4103 can be implemented without
involving Cisco Intellectual Property.



18. VoIP Phones (terminals) (hardware and software) that have multiline
displays ALREADY should display realtime text data that they receive.

* Does NOT require that display be added

* Does NOT require that whole display be used



19. VoIP Phones (terminals) (hardware and software) that have text input
capability ALREADY should should allow realtime text data to be transmitted.


* Does NOT require that a keyboard be added

* Does NOT require any text input capability that is not already
possible with the terminal



20. Where phones do not provide built in real-time text conversation
capabilities, there should be a way to connect a device that does

* Either through the phone or in parallel

* That has the same privileges as the phone

* IF the phone is a public/shared phone - then connecting the text
capable phone should not require an administrator.
























Gregg

------------------------

Gregg C Vanderheiden Ph.D.
Professor - Depts of Ind. Engr. & BioMed Engr.
Director - Trace R & D Center
University of Wisconsin-Madison
< <http://trace.wisc.edu/> http://trace.wisc.edu/> FAX 608/262-8848

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