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

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From: David Poehlman
Date: Thu, Jul 05 2007 7:35 AM

I agree with Karen,

It is possible and there are many phones today which have displays. it
would not be difficult to enable them for text as well as audio.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Karen Peltz Strauss" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
To: "TEITAC Telecommunications Subcommittee"
< = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Sent: Thursday, July 05, 2007 9:32 AM
Subject: Re: [teitac-telecom] Working our way to common ground.


Clarification. . .in my prior message, I did not make clear that in the
quote below, it had been Paul who had written "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?"

Also, my response does not even get at the importance of the phone for basic
emergency access, which, for the foreseeable future will still remain
"voice-based." Next generation 9-1-1 systems are still probably 5-10 years
out, given the funding problems faced by PSAPs.

In response to Jim's postings, remember that we are not only drafting for
Section 508 anymore. We are also talking about Section 255, which now
requires access by interconnected VoIP providers.

Karen
----- Original Message -----
From: Karen Peltz Strauss
To: TEITAC Telecommunications Subcommittee
Sent: Thursday, July 05, 2007 8:14 AM
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. You wrote: "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. Jones
To: TEITAC Telecommunications 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 Vanderheiden
To: 'TEITAC Telecommunications 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.






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

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 Vanderheiden

To: 'TEITAC 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
a.. 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
a.. 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
a.. 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
a.. 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
a.. 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.
a.. IM is sometimes superior to real-time conversation.
b.. Other times real-time conversation is superior.
c.. 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.
a.. "Self-contained system" is a system where all of the
terminals, routers and servers are manufactured by or controlled by a single
entity.
b.. A "Self-contained system" can include an Internet leg if
both ends terminate inside the "Self contained system".
c.. 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.
a.. 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
a.. RFC-4103 (also called text/t140) sends text data packets
on "text" channel that is separate from the audio data channel
b.. 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

a.. 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.
a.. Does NOT require that display be added
b.. 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.
a.. Does NOT require that a keyboard be added
b.. 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
a.. Either through the phone or in parallel
b.. That has the same privileges as the phone
c.. 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/> FAX 608/262-8848

DSS Player at http://tinyurl.com/dho6b

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