The Text Relay telephone service for deaf people has made a huge impact upon their lives - and it continues to do so. But it is largely based on 1990's technology and as a result deaf people are falling behind in the ongoing telecoms revolution.
Today, technologies like the internet and video telephony can be used to provide many deaf people with the quality of telephone service enjoyed by hearing people.
The existing Text Relay enables deaf people to communicate with hearing people via an operator. The process is usually much slower than normal conversational pace and as a result is quite limiting.
New services like captioned relay and video relay enable normally-paced conversations for deaf people with speech and sign language users respectively. Such services make a huge difference to deaf people's employment and life chances. These services exist in many other countries, but are either unavailable or not widely available in the UK.
TAG is asking Government, Parliament and Ofcom to ensure that the following are available:
- captioned relay that costs the same as a normal telephone call
- video relay for fixed line, mobile and internet users
- internet access to all relay services
- fair text and video relay tariffs on all mobile networks
- real-time text that is affordable and can be used on mobile and IP networks
- deaf-aware sales and customer services.