Many Deaf Consumers Unaware of TRS Move to 10-Digit Phone Numbers

TRS providers have a “short window of time” to register relay users, said Mike Maddix, regulatory affairs manager of Sorenson, the largest U.S. provider of relay service. Finishing the job will be a “monumental task” requiring “multipronged” outreach by providers, the FCC and others, he said. The exact number of Internet-based TRS users isn’t known because they've never had to register before. Estimates vary. A Sprint Relay spokeswoman said there are probably more than 500,000 unique IP addresses. Relay providers had assigned about 185,000 phone numbers to customers by March, she said.

Acquiring a 10-digit number allows a relay user to make and receive calls like a hearing user, a step toward meeting the Americans with Disabilities Act’s functional-equivalency requirement. Using real numbers also allows users to make 911 calls based on their geographic location.

But many TRS customers are confused about the 10-digit transition, officials said. Even with education efforts by relay service providers, the FCC, NeuStar and consumer groups, “a good number” of TRS users remain unaware of the change, said Claude Stout, executive director of Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, a consumer group. Many TRS users don’t understand why they need to register, Maddix said. Finding customers can be another problem, he added. Deaf people move more often than others, and relay providers are often left with old addresses, he said.

To minimize transition problems, Farinha called for “serious consumer education,” including mass media using video and text and in-person workshops. Others agreed. “Additional funding sources, marketing campaigns and more time will help minimize problems,” the Sprint spokeswoman said. Stout said, “Three words: outreach, outreach, outreach.”

But education efforts by some TRS providers may be increasing confusion, consumer group officials said. Some providers promote their events as workshops on E-911 and local 10-digit numbering, but “once they get people there, they add their own marketing spiel about their products and services,” Farinha said. Some providers “tout the 10-digit number as a company slogan or company brand phone number,” she said. As a result, consumers may believe that the number is just a new company product and don’t realize that they have to get one, she said.

Maddix defended Sorenson’s inclusion of marketing in outreach, saying the company is “leveraging” existing events and information sources. Sorenson’s education efforts include town hall events, meetings with individual users and video phone calls. Sorenson had already scheduled “thousands” of marketing events this year, and the company decided the events presented an opportunity to do 10-digit number outreach, he said. The company also is including information on the transition in its quarterly newsletter, he noted.

Stout said providers should be doing outreach events in addition to marketing events already planned. “The FCC has said they would reimburse providers like Sorenson” for education efforts, he said.

Meanwhile, the FCC “needs to seriously step up to the plate” on consumer education, Farinha said. The commission is working on an American Sign Language video for its Web site but hasn’t posted it yet. The commission should work more with consumer groups to promote and conduct consumer workshops, she added.

The FCC also must deal with matters that will crop up after users have registered, said Karen Strauss, a legal adviser to Communication Services for the Deaf and former FCC disabilities access expert. Important questions remain on equipment portability, slamming and customer proprietary network information, among other issues, she said.

Whether the FCC’s TRS equipment portability rules can work is a major concern, said Strauss, who recently signed a petition on the issue on behalf of provider CSDVRS (CD April 15 p9). “The goal is good,” because the porting rules allow consumers to sever ties with the old provider while keeping relay equipment, “but unfortunately it just doesn’t work,” Strauss said. More than 90 percent of equipment of current users is from Sorenson, but the company is stripping address books and other enhanced features from ported equipment, she said. The feature loss may discourage customers from porting or require them to buy equipment from their new providers, she said.

Other implementation problems involve distributing geographically appropriate phone numbers in less populated areas, dialing N11 numbers other than 911, and enabling one phone number to ring multiple devices, Farinha said. Providers are also having trouble meeting an FCC requirement to prioritize public safety call-backs when a 911 call is dropped, she said.

It’s not financially feasible for relay providers to acquire local numbers for every rate center in the country, Sorenson said in a petition to the FCC this week. “As a result, the thousands of users who live in unserved rate centers either may not be able to register with a default provider” before July “or are at risk of having prior registrations annulled because they were assigned local numbers that are not geographically appropriate,” it said. “Such broad disenfranchisement of deaf consumers, if allowed to materialize, would endanger the safety of affected users and sow widespread confusion, doubt, and anger about the registration process and the new numbering regime.”

The FCC must get involved vigorously in TRS, Strauss said. “The FCC needs to be proactive in considering new technologies and ensuring the deaf community is not left behind … or forced into a closed system that is not equally accessible to the mainstream,” she said. The government is still requiring relay technology to be compatible with legacy H323 technology, despite movement to Session Initiation Protocol technology used in VoIP, she said. Unless that changes, Strauss predicts a “repeat of what happened with” teletype technology, which still relies on outdated Baudot code.

FCC action is needed to open the TRS equipment market, Strauss said. Relay equipment can be bought only directly from providers, she said. “I would like to see deaf people purchase mainstream equipment from retail establishments, and have the same breadth of choice” as hearing consumers, she said. “Right now, the community is kind of stuck with the choices the providers are giving them.”

The turnover of commissioners has reduced the priority of TRS at the FCC, Strauss said. But she believes action on TRS can happen before incoming Chairman Julius Genachowski arrives. Acting Chairman Michael Copps is “very enlightened” about relay issues, she said. Strauss is also hopeful that the Genachowski FCC will take up TRS issues, she said. “I know some of the people who he will be working with, and they are very interested.”