Copps Says Disability Access Crucial to National Broadband Plan

Copps, who spoke at an afternoon session, said he had listened from his office to much of the testimony earlier. “It has only increased my dedication to making sure that disabilities access issues [are] a front-and-center, integral component of the broadband plan that’s going to be coming from the commission in February,” he said.

Copps noted testimony that technology available to people with disabilities lags by 10-20 years what’s available to everyone else. “That’s not satisfactory,” he said. “We've all heard in the last couple of weeks the statistic I think that 75 percent of the Fortune 500 companies are only hiring off of the Internet. The old ways don’t work anymore. This is more than just convenience or luxury. It’s quality of life. It’s the necessities of life.”

Unaffordable equipment and insufficient outreach are the biggest barriers to broadband adoption by people with disabilities, said disability-rights advocates and others at the workshop. They sought government mandates to spur wide accessibility for broadband. “The marketplace has never supported or provided or resulted in accessibility,” said Rosaline Crawford, the director of the National Association of the Deaf’s Law and Advocacy Center.

“Every single” contract and grant that the government makes related to broadband should require accessibility, Crawford said. And the government should strongly enforce rules requiring accessible Internet content, she said. Television and the telephone became accessible to people with disabilities only after generations of usage had passed, Crawford said. “We are firmly committed that as these technologies migrate over to the Internet, and as the Internet and broadband become much more commonplace than even they are today, that we will not be forgotten, we will not be left out, and we will not be left behind.”

The high price of accessibility technologies is a major obstacle to adoption, panelists said. It costs about $500 to get a PDA that’s accessible to the blind -- $250 for the device plus $250 for accessibility software, said Eric Bridges of the American Council for the Blind. Prices are even higher for those who can neither see nor hear, said Elizabeth Spiers, the director of information services for the American Association of the Deaf-Blind: They must spend $3,000 for a mobile device and $10,000 for a computer and a Braille display.

Compounding the problem, people with disabilities are among the worst off financially in the U.S., said Inclusive Technologies President Jim Tobias. Their unemployment rate is three times the national average; they're twice as likely to be in poverty, and they're one-third as likely to have college degrees, he said.

More outreach and training about communications technology available to people with disabilities is needed, panelists said. “The Internet is essential to knowing what is going on” but people with disabilities aren’t being sufficiently trained to use accessibility technologies, said Elizabeth Weintraub, member of the Council on Quality and Leadership. Many people whose speech is impaired don’t know they can use speech-to-speech technology to call 911, for example, said Rebecca Ladew, representing Speech Communications Assistance by Telephone. Outreach must also extend to hearing users, she added. For example, 911 operators should receive training on how to deal with calls from people with impaired speech, she said.

Government must be careful not to “apply a one-size- fits-all solution” to all people with disabilities, said Claude Stout, the executive director of Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. “Some deaf people use sign language; some don’t. Some deaf people have good use of their voices; some don’t.”

Partnerships among government agencies are central to getting broadband to people with disabilities, said federal and state officials on a government panel. The Labor Department can help the FCC ensure its broadband strategy “is applicable in the context of workforce development,” said Richard Horne, the director of the department’s policy planning & research division in the Office of Disability Employment Policy. If the FCC wants, Labor can also add a few questions to the disabilities supplement of its current population survey in 2012, he said.

The Education Department can provide data on special education for people with disabilities, said Jennifer Sheehy, director of policy and planning in DoE’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services. And it would be helpful if the FCC would assist in getting the word out on accessibility money available from DoE, she said.

As the largest federal procurement agency, the General Services Administration can influence manufacturer decisions on accessibility, said Terry Weaver, the director of GSA’s IT Accessibility & Workforce Division Office of Government-wide Policy. Companies don’t like to manufacture different products for government and commercial markets, she said. “By us requiring accessible technologies, accessible products and services in our solicitations, we are driving the effect forward of making sure that the technologies everybody can buy will be more accessible.”

Open platforms and standards will spur new accessible content and services, said Daniel Weitzner, associate administrator for NTIA’s Office of Policy Analysis and Development. “When we build on top of open standards, when we employ universal design approaches … we increase opportunities [and] reduce costs and make sure we can really realize the vision of having an Internet that’s accessible to all.”

“Our first recommendation to the commission is there must be a certain definition for minimum broadband that includes two-way transmission,” said Grant Seiffert, the TIA’s president, who testified at a session Tuesday afternoon. “Certainly, this would enable two-way live video communication that is critical for those who are deaf and hard of hearing to have full access to the national communications network.” Seiffert also said the Universal Service Fund’s Lifeline and Linkup funds should be allowed to be used for broadband. “We think those two recommendations are critical to the success of hooking up all Americans,” he said.

Greg Elin, the chief technology officer of United Cerebral Palsy, called an open architecture for the Internet critical to growth of services for people with disabilities. “I'm very bullish on the ability of communities to develop their own solutions to problems if not stymied by gatekeepers, high costs, or aging business models,” he said. “Large enterprises must service their largest block of existing customers and innovation always takes place speculatively at the edges and on the unserved fronts of the customer base, where it’s uneconomic for large businesses to play.”

John Snapp, the senior technical officer at Intrado, discussed how little the 911 system has kept up with change. “The 911 system that we have today really has its roots back in the ‘60s,” Snapp said. “The technology that we're using today, the systems, the methodologies, are all based still on these 1960s technologies. The system that was built back in the ‘60s was built with the only technology that was there -- voice technology, fixed, wireline phones. What we're seeing now is many new types of communications, many new means that people are able to communicate. You're seeing texting. You're seeing video. You're seeing VoIP and all of these are creating challenges.”

Snapp said an added complication is that with the downturn in the economy, “many people are abandoning their landline phones and going with a single type of communications, be it a wireless phone, be it a VoIP-type device. … We're having many people utilizing communications devices that are not optimized for the 911 network.”