Commissioners Say Broadband Policy Must Include People With Disabilities
Serving people with disabilities must be a high priority of U.S. broadband policy, said FCC Commissioners Michael Copps, Mignon Clyburn and Robert McDowell, during a commission field hearing at Gallaudet University, a school in D.C. for people with impaired hearing. “It’s not just something nice for us to do,” said Copps, who hosted the event. “It’s their right. … Access denied is opportunity denied.” Marlee Matlin, an actress who has won an Academy Award and is deaf, called for closed captioning in video media streaming online. The hearing followed an FCC order late Thursday clearing up outstanding technical issues related to the Nov. 12 transition of Internet-based telecom relay services to 10-digit phone numbers.
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Clyburn said it’s important for the FCC to consider the needs of people with disabilities as it writes policy, not after the fact. “If we're forced to retrofit [for] the needs of the disabled … as an afterthought, then we're bound to make flawed determinations,” she said. McDowell said it’s “critical” that the National Broadband Plan take into account all those interested. “Today we do not try to explore how best to help the disabled. Rather, we endeavor to empower people with disabilities.”
Copps encouraged those at the hearing to take part in the broadband proceeding. “Just as telecommunications providers shouldn’t be designing equipment for people with disabilities without including people with disabilities in their planning and development, neither should the FCC be writing a broadband plan for people with disabilities without including people with disabilities from start to finish.” The FCC has held a number of events on disabilities rights issues in recent months, most recently a National Broadband Plan workshop (CD Oct 21 p7).
“We must do better … at the outset” of policymaking to require ISPs to make services accessible, said Silicon Flatirons Director Dale Hatfield, who worked on disabilities- rights issues at the FCC when Bill Kennard was the chairman. Friday’s hearing was a good start, he said. It’s important for the commission to “use the power of the bully pulpit … to continually remind service providers and equipment vendors of their moral and legal obligations, and to back that up with strong enforcement for those that don’t get the message,” Hatfield said. The FCC’s broadband plan won’t be national “unless we ensure that to the maximum extent possible, services and equipment related to broadband are accessible to people with disabilities,” said Mark Richert, the American Foundation for the Blind’s director of public policy.
Matlin, who was a leading supporter of legislation that requires closed captioning on TV, said the same issue has surfaced on the Web. Movies and TV shows streamed on Netflix, Hulu, iTunes and other Web sites fail to provide captioning, she said. Not even a recent live event honoring Helen Keller offered online captions, she said. The actress said she lobbied Capitol Hill this week with Purple Communications and the National Association of the Deaf in support of the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2009 (HR-3101). The bill was introduced by Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., during the summer (CD June 30 p7). “Though I may be deaf, silence is the last thing the world will ever hear from me,” Matlin said.
FCC Resolves TRS Petitions
A week before the deadline for people who are deaf to register 10-digit phone numbers for their video and Internet- based telecom relay services, the FCC answered a handful of lingering petitions on technical issues that TRS providers said could upset a successful transition. The Wireline and Consumer & Governmental Affairs bureaus responded to petitions by Hamilton Relay, Sorenson Communications and Purple Communications related to geographically appropriate numbers, transmission of certain information during 911 calls, and prioritization of public safety call-backs.
The FCC bureaus temporarily waived a rule banning relay providers from assigning “geographically approximate” numbers to users when the company can’t get access to numbers in the users’ rate centers. When the FCC made the rule, it concluded that this wouldn’t happen often. “The record now reflects, however, that instances in which Internet-based TRS providers, through their numbering partners, are unable to provide their users ten-digit NANP numbers in their rate centers are far more extensive than anticipated; a single provider has estimated, for example, that thousands of its own users would be affected,” the bureaus said. Providers may not use proxy or toll-free numbers instead of geographically appropriate numbers, they said.
The bureaus also clarified that providers can verbally convey communications assistant identification numbers to public safety on 911 calls while the industry works out a system to do it automatically. Relay providers and public safety groups had told the FCC that there’s no technically feasible way to transmit the information through the Automatic Location Information database. “In taking this action, we are satisfied, based on the information provided by NENA and APCO, that the oral transmission of CA IDs will neither delay the processing of emergency Internet-based TRS calls nor compromise the provision of reliable E911 service to Internet-based TRS users,” the bureaus said.
But FCC bureaus didn’t budge on a rule requiring VRS and text relay companies to prioritize queuing of public safety callbacks to users whose 911 calls have been disconnected. They rejected an argument by Hamilton Relay that the rule was unnecessary for text relay because FCC rules already require that 85 percent of these calls be answered in 10 seconds or less. The bureaus said the 85-percent rule doesn’t ensure a public safety call-back wouldn’t fall into the 15 percent of calls that aren’t answered right away. The bureau also rejected a petition by Purple asking for six more months to implement the queuing system. The bureaus noted that Purple’s competitor Sorenson has figured out a way to prioritize the calls that “may be implemented relatively quickly.”
Hamilton Relay is “glad that the FCC has cleared up these outstanding issues in preparation for the November 12 deadline,” said attorney David O'Connor. “Hamilton plans to comply with the order.” Sorenson and Purple didn’t immediately return requests for comment.