Inclusive Communications Working Document

Other Topics of Importance and Emerging Technologies

5.1 Electronic communications services for deaf-blind people

Deaf-blind people have a wide range of different communication needs. Like everyone else, they need access to directory and emergency services as well as normal person-to-person contact. There are, however, a number of constraints experienced by deaf-blind persons in getting access to telephone services.

INCOM carried out a special survey about the situation for deaf-blind persons and electronic communications in Europe. The responses show that terminal equipment is expensive and often obsolescent. There appears to be little uniformity in the terminal equipment used in different countries. In the UK a telephone with Braille output has recently been launched. It retails at around £3,000, which puts it beyond the reach of almost all individuals.

“Social” provision of the required equipment, i.e. funding by local or central government, seems reasonably widespread. However, where budgets are controlled locally there is inconsistent provision. There is also often a mix of state and charitable funding. In Denmark, the provision of terminal equipment and software for deaf-blind people is provided through the universal service obligation at a price equal to an ordinary telephone.

Access to a relay service is also essential if deaf-blind people are to be able to communicate with all other subscribers in real time.

The recent introduction in Sweden of a “service centre” to which deaf-blind can refer by telephone for a range of information, support and advice is of particular interest.

The use of the Internet or internet protocols as alternatives to text phones is viewed with caution by some respondents. Continuing technical problems are cited. Elsewhere, views are more positive.

The opportunity to use unified conversational services as defined in the preferred set of standards as described in section 3.2 has the power to open the inclusion of deaf-blind people in a wide communications environment.

The use of e-mail and the Internet is potentially helpful but requires high levels of spatial navigation and Braille skills.

Radio signals are used to carry emergency messages between deaf-blind people and operators and to provide vibrating alert signals but these do not have standardised frequencies.

5.2 The use of Ermes band frequencies to support accessibility services

The Commission has issued a Mandate to the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT) to investigate the use of the 169.4-8 MHz including possibilities for assistive listening devices and social alarms, guidance systems and audio description in public places. This is being handled in CEPT by Project Team 42 with a deadline of 31 March 2004.

This is an example of good practice on mainstream radio frequency allocation to consider support to EU policies, namely for people with disabilities and elderly people.

Attention needs to be given to the provision of equipment and services to meet the difficult and complex needs of deaf-blind persons.

5.3 Information services

Users with disabilities have repeatedly mentioned the lack of information about available products and services. It is both a question of making mainstream information systems accessible and providing special information about services for disabled users.

In Denmark, in a collaboration between the Danish Centre for Technical Aids and the National IT and Telecom Agency a special effort has been put into structuring the part of the assistive technology database which concerns telephones and aids for telephoning.

5.4 Broadband

Broadband connections offer excellent possibilities for valuable services for many users with disabilities. Examples are the kind of services provided in the Swedish broadband eAccessibility applications pilots, procured by the national regulator:

Broadband for deaf-blind users (service centre)
Broadband for intellectually disabled, information, communication
Broadband for partially sighted: digital books to university students using DAISY
Distance education for persons with mild aphasia
Distance education in sign language (Swedish Deaf Association)
Job guidance, consultations, training: all disabilities.

Such pilot trials could be encouraged in other Member States and access to broadband services by users with disabilities could be facilitated on the same terms as for other citizens.

Sometimes other solutions could be more appropriate than broadband like intelligent user equipment and use of CD-ROMS.

A specific need for broadband connections to provide basic telephone services is that of deaf persons with sign language as their means of communication. As pointed out in section 3.2, broadband connections are necessary to enable telephone conversations of sufficient quality in sign language between videophones .

In parallel INCOM may also continue to explore how to improve eAccessibility to broadband emerging new services and applications. Some of them were introduced and discussed in section 3.2, dealing with communications for deaf or hearing impaired people such as the example of deaf persons needing videophones for sign language.

5.5 World Wide Web

Although not directly part of this report it is worth mentioning the developments in the World Wide Web and Internet and the needs for accessibility to the content and services provided through this mean. This issue is mainly covered at this moment as part of the eEurope initiative. In this context, Member States have adopted the WWW/W3C content accessibility guidelines version 1.0. As technology is rapidly changing it is important in the future to evolve to new versions of these guidelines that would reflect the state of the art.

5.6 Emerging technologies for accessibility

As a first principle, it is important that the potential of emerging technologies for improving the range of goods and services to elderly and disabled people is taken into account at an early stage so that potential steps towards equivalence do not become additional barriers; this is particularly important in the area of setting standards.

The following paragraphs have been written in order to launch a discussion on the potential of new technologies, to seek concrete examples of progress and good practice and to provide material for research proposals:

3g Cellular Technology. This has all the advantages of broadband but with added flexibility which means that partially sighted people and wheelchair users will not have to struggle with inaccessible public telephones.
Location Based Services. Location based services are provided to user interfaces, such as cellular phones, through the use of satellites. They have the following beneficial applications specifically for people with disabilities:
- * Location identification and information for blind and partially sighted people, those with cognitive difficulties and those who find spatial information difficult to interpret
- * Automatic location information to telephone operators from people who cannot communicate verbally
- * Ergonomic routing for people who find walking difficult or who are wheelchair users.
Intelligent Agents. Intelligent agents are applications which aggregate and analyse data on the basis of user behaviour. They therefore simplify many data searching and reporting functions. They are applicable directly to disabled people in the following areas:
- Simplification of searching and relevant reporting for people with cognitive difficulties and blind and partially sighted people
- Reduced keying for people with physical impairments
- More focused results from the widest possible searches for people who find it difficult to formulate searches
- Reduced frustration with Internet inaccessibility and poor usability for all people who are disabled or elderly.
Language Engineering and Simplification. In recent years there has been rapid progress in automated language translation and simplification; and although it is not yet fully reliable, it has reached the stage where the following specific applications for people with disabilities should be investigated:
- Language translation of audio description for blind and partially sighted people
- Text simplification in generating visual sub titles for deaf and hearing impaired people and those with cognitive difficulties.
Voice in/Voice out. Voice out technologies have been widely used in accessibility technologies for blind and partially sighted people for many years and voice-in technologies are more than a decade old but they have not yet been effectively combined in single, seamless systems. Research is required with specific reference to:
- The reliability of voice input for people with physical disabilities and poor fine motor or keyboard skills
- The assessment of the trade off between the reliability of voice-in and the size of the vocabulary which would benefit people in general but would be particularly useful for people with cognitive difficulties
- Improvement in the clarity and 'realism' of voice-out systems for blind and partially sighted people.
Automatically generated signing and lip movement - Avatars. Research is already under way into the automatic generation from voice and/or text input of signing and lip moving avatars and this should be taken further.
Wireless Connectivity and flat screens. The almost simultaneous development of wireless connectivity and flat screens means that processing can be radically separated from visual output. This means that a portable processing device can interact with a large flat screen which might form a surface such as a table. A user might therefore carry her own processor and interact with a variety of large screens such as those in railway stations or might carry her own screen and access data from a variety of processors.
Pattern Recognition. Pattern recognition technology, initially developed to detect pornography, can identify abnormal phenomena such as human figures prone when they are expected to be standing. This technology could be used in voluntary surveillance to allow people with disabilities and elderly people to remain securely in their own homes instead of using special residential care.
Gesture/Sign Recognition. Pattern recognition technology has already been used in static environments (see k) above) but it can also be used to analyse dynamic material such as signs and gestures. This would potentially enable wheelchair users to wave at a door or those with speech impediments to make signals at security intercom systems.
Robotics. Robotics should be developed to enable those with physical impairments to manage physical task completion.