April 13, 2006 | Jetsons Video Phone? Deaf Say Yes!

More than 40 years after the Jetsons promised us we would all have videophones, we've arrived at a future where that's a reality -- whether through free internet chat applications, pricey standalone home units, or high-tech corporate video-conferencing rooms.

Now that we have them, it's far from clear that the average phoner wants video for routine calls like ordering a pizza or checking in with mom and dad. But one community is certain of the videophone's benefits: the deaf.

An FCC program for the deaf sounds like the modern equivalent of ringing Mabel the operator down at the phone exchange so she can patch through your call. Assuming, of course, that Mabel has signing skills.

The system, called video relay services, or VRS, is proving a godsend to the deaf and hearing-impaired, allowing them to communicate using American Sign Language through a translator to a third party.

Increasing numbers of the hearing-impaired are now using various sorts of video phones with VRS to place calls to each other and to the hearing world.

VRS providers are paid approximately $6 a minute by the FCC from a tax levied on every U.S. phone bill. That makes VRS an expensive replacement for conventional TDD-based services, in which an operator relays between a deaf person typing on a computer terminal and a hearing person on the phone. Those calls cost the FCC about $1 a minute.

But the technology is a quantum leap for deaf people, according to Pat Nola, CEO of Sorenson Communications, the nation's largest VRS provider.

For the deaf, switching to the new service is like a hearing person going from Morse code to a telephone, says Nola.

Full story here.

Josh, a reader, writes in to chide me for not including Captioned Telephone as part of the story:

From what I understand, the majority of the deaf and hard of hearing community can still speak. This technology allows a normal telephone conversation to take place with the operator uses voice recognition to provide real-time captions of the phone call. I know several people that use this and it seems much less cumbersome than a video conference system.

That does sound interesting and I didn't include it in the story because I hadn't run it across it in my reporting. Score another point for my readers being smarter than I am.

Posted by Ryan Singel at April 13, 2006 09:47 AM

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