Industry Resists Calls for Accessibility Mandates

“Laws are needed to ensure that as broadband technologies march forward, people with disabilities are not left behind,” said the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center (RERC) on Telecommunications Access. Accessibility regulations applying to telecom and media should apply to broadband, it said. And policymakers should require accessibility functions to be built “directly into broadband infrastructure and technologies,” it said. Market forces alone won’t achieve interoperability between broadband and access technologies, it said. Also, goals for broadband speed and bandwidth should at a minimum support video communications, it said.

The RERC also urged creation of a federal-state program providing subsidies to consumers unable to afford IP-based equipment like video relay service. That should be a program separate from any telecom relay service fund, and it shouldn’t use universal service funds, it said.

Net neutrality rules will also help, a separate RERC on Universal Interface and Information Technology Access said. “Any restrictions on the ability of users to use whichever technologies they need to access the Internet can restrict the ability of people with disabilities to access the Internet effectively at all.” Many disability access services use peer-to-peer technology, it added.

Both RERC groups said more outreach is critical because many individuals with disabilities aren’t aware of technology available to them. However, the American Council of the Blind said outreach alone won’t improve broadband adoption by the blind “as long as the economic factors of low employment, the cost of broadband and the cost of assistive technology [AT] exist.”

To spur adoption, the FCC should “mandate, or strongly encourage, manufacturers of broadband devices to pre-install screen access technology and ensure their devices are usable for the blind,” the National Federation of the Blind said. No precise measurement exists for the number of blind adults who use broadband, but it’s “reasonable to assume” it’s “significantly below the national average,” the federation said.

Requiring manufacturers to preinstall screen-reader technology would make broadband more affordable for the blind, the federation said. Screen access technology is currently priced at $800-$1000 for computers and $400 for cellphones, it said. Accessibility technology is even more expensive for people who are deaf in addition to being blind. One device, the Deaf-Blind Communicator, “can cost up to $8,000 for the entire unit,” the American Association of the Deaf-Blind said. Technology must be coupled with training, noted the American Council. “Without such training, the community cannot participate in many employment, educational, social and community activities.”

For the blind, most Web sites “have some content that is not accessible or that present some barriers to accessing content,” the federation said. That applies even to many local, state and federal government Web sites, including Recovery.gov, it said. Very little video content includes video-description technology, in part because there are no federal mandates requiring that broadcast TV be described, it said.

However, CEA and TIA said the FCC shouldn’t impose the same kinds of accessibility requirements for broadband it mandated in a “wireline, circuit-switched, rate regulated world.” They made a joint filing. “The broadband ecosystem today … is open, highly competitive, decentralized and dispersed, and technologies are evolving and converging and innovations emerging so rapidly that policymakers need to re-think the traditional ’top-down’ approach to accessibility regulation,” the groups said. “Congress and the Commission have also consistently understood that requiring accessibility for every newly-introduced device and service, covering every disability, can undermine innovation and work to the detriment of persons with and without disabilities.”

CEA and TIA counseled against open access requirements for assistive technology vendors. “There is a significant risk that such an approach, even if well-intended, would stifle innovation,” they said. “Policymakers’ objective should be to achieve the degree of accessibility appropriate for individual products and services once they become commercially viable and widely adopted in the market.” They warned that accessibility requirements “may have real technical implications for the costs and capabilities of equipment and services for all consumers, regardless of disability.”

CTIA said the FCC should not expand its requirements beyond the “readily achievable” accessibility standard in Section 255 of the Communications Act. “The current regulatory framework that requires accessibility to wireless communications is working to ensure accessibility remains a priority in wireless products and services based on market demands in this era of intense competition, innovation and investment in mobile wireless communications,” CTIA said. Current rules have “provided the flexibility the wireless industry needs to quickly introduce innovative wireless devices and respond to consumer demand for accessibility features or compatibility with AT or software based on technological feasibility.”

Wireless devices are naturally evolving in a way that will mean better accessibility for people with disabilities, CTIA said. “As one example of the many in the wireless industry, the National Federation for the Blind recently recognized Apple’s efforts to make the iPhone, a device largely defined by its graphical user interface that works with a touchscreen, accessible and useable for persons with visual impairments while the original versions of the iPhone were dismissed by the same community for being virtually inaccessible.”

AT&T told the FCC it works closely with the disabilities community to its ensure its products and services “are maximally accessible” to customers with disabilities. “For example, the company has developed and made public a Universal Design methodology so that wireless equipment and application developers can better create accessible products for AT&T customers,” the company said. “In partnership with AOL, AT&T recently became the first provider to offer realtime IM relay services to allow those with hearing disabilities to better communicate with standard telephone users. The iPhone 3GS, which uses AT&T’s 3G network, offers captioned movies, and AT&T’s U-Verse customers can program their DVR from their PC, allowing visually impaired subscribers to more easily schedule recordings.”

AT&T warned that accessibility in a broadband world cannot be effectively accomplished through “single-channel regulations” like those the commission crafted in past eras for TV and telecommunications service and equipment. “No measures can be effective unless they are supported and adopted by a broad range of stakeholders, working cooperatively,” the company said. “A broadband Internet access provider, acting alone, cannot ensure accessibility of the services offered over its network. Instead, applications providers, website operators, equipment manufacturers, technical standards organizations, and various other actors must also play critical roles.”