National Relay Service Performance Report
2006–07
© Commonwealth of Australia 2008
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process without prior written permission from the Commonwealth. Requests and inquiries concerning reproduction and rights should be addressed to the Manager, Communications and Publishing, Australian Communications and Media Authority, PO Box 13112 Law Courts, Melbourne Vic 8010.
ISSN 1833-0754
Published by the Australian Communications and Media Authority
Senator the Hon. Stephen Conroy
Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
Dear Minister
I am pleased to provide you with the Australian Communications and Media Authority’s (ACMA) annual report on the performance of the National Relay Service (NRS) providers.
Subsection 97(2) of the Telecommunications (Consumer Protection and Service Standards) Act 1999 (the Act) states that, as soon as practicable after the end of each financial year, ACMA must give a written report to the Minister about the performance of the NRS providers during the financial year of their obligations under the NRS service plan.
The enclosed report on the performance of the Australian Communication Exchange and WestWood Spice under the National Relay Service Plan 2006–07 fulfils this requirement. This is the first year in which there has been more than one provider of the NRS, following changes in contractual arrangements which came into effect as at 1 July 2006.
It has been a successful year for the scheme. The NRS providers consistently met the required performance standards during the 2006–07 reporting year. There has however been in the number of call minutes delivered by the service and a decline in the number of users.
You may wish to note that subsection 97(3) of the Act requires you to table a copy of this report in each House of Parliament within 15 sitting days of receipt.
Yours sincerely
Chris Chapman
Chairman
24 January 200
NRS Report 2006–071
Contents
Introduction
Overview of the service
What is the National Relay Service?
How does the National Relay Service work?
Who can be contacted via the National Relay Service?
Who delivers the National Relay Service?
What is ACMA’s role in the management of the contracts for the delivery of the National Relay Service?
Who pays for the National Relay Service?
What is the National Relay Service Plan?
Snapshot of the National Relay Service
Call Minutes
Number of NRS users
Inbound call types
Outbound call types
Relay service performance in 2006–07
Availability and Operation of the NRS
Service options
Call Charges and Billing
Relay Service performance standards
Outreach service performance in 2006–07
Background
Approach to the delivery of the outreach service
Outreach Service Performance Indicators
NRS issues and future directions
NRS Report 2006–071
Introduction
This report has been prepared by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) in accordance with section 97 (2) of the Telecommunications (Consumer Protection and Service Standards) Act 1999 which requires that, as soon as practicable after the end of each financial year, ACMA must provide a written report to the Minister on the performance of the National Relay Service (NRS) providers against the requirements of the NRS Plan.
Section 97 (3) of the Act requires the Minister to table the report in Parliament within 15 sitting days of the Minister receiving it.
This report has four parts:
●an overview of the service which outlines its scope and the arrangements for its delivery;
●a statistical snapshot of the service;
●a review of the performance of the relay service provider against its contractual obligations and commitments in the NRS Plan;and
●a review of the performance of the outreach service provideragainst its contractual obligations and commitments in the NRS Plan.
Overview of the service
What is the National Relay Service?
The National Relay Service (NRS) is a legislated consumer protection under Part 3 of the Telecommunications (Consumer Protection and Service Standards) Act 1999.
The NRS provides persons who are Deaf or who have a hearing and/or speech impairment with access to a standard telephone service on terms and in circumstances that are comparable to the access other Australians have to a standard telephone service.
The service is available 24 hours per day, seven days a week and operates as a communication bridge for Deaf, hearing impaired and speech impaired people in the community.
How does the National Relay Service work?
The communication bridge provided by the NRS usually (but not always) involves a relay officer converting text communication to voice and voice communication to text to enable text and voice users to have a telephone conversation.
Text users can contact the NRS via a telephone typewriter (TTY) or via the internet.There are also options for users who can speak and wish to use their own voice to do so while being able to read the other caller’s responses in text.A description of the various call types made via the NRS is given in this report.
Who can be contacted via the National Relay Service?
Calls via the NRS can be made to anyone, anywhere, although suitable billing arrangements must be in place before calls can be made to overseas and premium rate numbers.Otherwise calls within Australia can be made for the cost of contacting the NRS via its 13 or 1300 number, which isaround the cost of a local call.
The NRS relay service provider is also named as an Emergency Call Person (ECP) in the Telecommunications (Emergency Call Service) Determination 2002 and operates a text emergency service on the number 106.
There are a number of call options available to suit different users of the relay service. These options are described from the perspective of someone using specialist equipment such as a TTY. However, the relay service can equally be used by voice callers with a standard handset to contact someone who is Deaf or has a hearing or speech impairment.
Type and Read (also known as ‘text to voice’)
This service is for users who cannot hear and do not, or prefer not to, use their voice. The relay officer ‘becomes their voice’ and reads aloud what the user has typed to the recipient of the call, then listens to what the recipient says in reply and types it back for the user to read.
Speak and Read (also known as ‘voice carryover’)
This service is for users who cannot hear but prefer to use their voice to speak their side of the conversation instead of typing it.They can speak directly to the person they have called via the relay service. The relay officer listens to what the recipient of the call says in reply and types it back for the user to read.
Type and Listen (also known as ‘hearing carryover’)
This service is for users who have difficulty speaking or communicating but can hear. The user types their side of the conversation and the relay officer reads it aloud to the person they have called. The user can then listen directly to the other person's reply.
Speak and Listen (also know as ‘speech-to-speech relay’)
This service is for users who may have trouble in having their speech understood over the telephone. The relay officer, who is experienced in listening to people with speech impairments, will re-speak all or part of the conversation as required.
Who delivers the National Relay Service?
The NRS is delivered under contract to the Australian Government by two companies, Australian Communication Exchange Ltd (ACE) and WestWood Spice(WWS).ACE is responsible for delivering the NRS relay service and WWS is responsible for delivering the NRS outreach service.
These arrangements commenced on 1 July 2006.Previously, ACE had delivered both components of the NRS.
ACE is an Australian not-for-profit company with a particular focus on the Deaf sector.Its head office is in Brisbane and it operates call centres in Brisbane and Melbourne.
WWS is a Sydney-based specialist consulting group with particular experience and expertise in working in the community and public sectors.With the Australian Federation of Deaf Societies (AFDS) and specialist social marketing consultants as subcontractors, WWS has established a national network of five information and education officers, a help desk for users and an awareness raising program, since it commenced delivery of the outreach component of the NRS on 1 July 2006.
What is ACMA’s role in the management of the contracts for the delivery of the National Relay Service?
ACMA has certain legislated responsibilities for the NRS, including collection of the NRS levy, monitoring the performance of the providers and reporting to the Minister annually on this performance.Further details of these functions are set out below.
From 1 July 2006, ACMA assumed full contract management responsibilities from the (then)Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts (DCITA) for both NRS contracts.This means that ACMA is responsible for maintaining relationships with both contractors, attending to necessary approvals under the contracts (including the approval of government branding on all NRS materials) and the development of appropriate performance standards.
Who pays for the National Relay Service?
The NRS is funded through a levy on eligible telecommunications carriers.Carriers holding a carrier licence and covered by the most recent annual eligible revenue assessment made by ACMA are liable to pay the levy each quarter.A Ministerial Determination registered on 1 December 2005 restricts payment of the levy to carriers that have annual eligible revenue of $10 million in the most recent assessment.
ACMA is responsible for the collection of the NRS levy on behalf of the Australian Government.
The quarterly NRS levy is based on a forward estimate from the NRS providers of expected levels of usage of the NRS and planned outreach activities, along with a reconciliation of actual activity against the estimate provided from a prior quarter.
The cost of providing the NRS in 2006–07 was $14.8 million (including GST).The budget for the outreach program is capped at $3 million annually (including GST).The relay service component is variable, as it is based on a set rate for every call minute delivered.
What is the National Relay Service Plan?
Section 95 (2) of the Telecommunications (Consumer Protection and Service Standards) Act 1999 requires that the NRS providers prepare service plans for the NRS which must include at least the following matters:
●timetables for supply of the NRS; and
●performance standards to be met by the NRS providers.
The NRS Plan is prepared annually from these service plans and is available on the NRS website at
Snapshot of the National Relay Service
Call Minutes
Call minutes relayed by the NRS are calculated as the cumulative time duration of successful outbound calls made from the relay service.They provide the basis of payment to the relay service provider whose remuneration is based upon a fixed amount for each call minute relayed.
There has been a reasonably steady decline in the number of call minutes relayed over the past three years, as shown in Table 1.The number of call minutes relayed during 2006–07 was 15.5 per cent lower than the number relayed in 2002–03.Reasons for this declining trend are thought to relate to factors external to the NRS.For example, the popularity of mainstream text-based communication methods, such as email, instant messaging and SMS within the communities which use the NRS, has reduced the need to make as many calls via the service.Research undertaken by the NRS outreach provider confirms that many users are now using the NRS to establish contact initially and then making other arrangements, such as email, to continue the relationship.
Table 1: Call minutes relayed
Financial year / Total call minutes / Percentage change2002–03 / 3,741,685 / -
2003–04 / 3,780,741 / 1.04
2004–05 / 3,641,559 / -3.68
2005–06 / 3,408,420 / -6.40
2006–07 / 3,162,046 / -7.23
Number of NRS users
More than 7,000 Australians are using the NRS, as estimated by unique calling line identification (CLI)—a feature by which each call initiated through the telephone network involves sending details of the caller’s phone number through the network.The relay service provider can use this information, on a non-identified basis, as a reasonable measure of how many individual users are contacting the NRS.
The number of individual NRS users has also declined over the past five years, although at a slightly slower rate than the decline in call minutes.The overall decline in the number of users from 2002–03 to 2006–07 is estimated at 12.5 per cent, compared to a decline of 15.5 per cent in the number of call minutes relayed.This trend suggests that the NRS is continuing to play a role in the lives of its community of users, but that some calls previously made via the NRS are now being made in other ways.
Inbound call types
More than half the inbound calls made to the NRS in 2006–07 came from users of TTYs who wanted to make their calls on a Type and Read basis.Speak and Read calls where the user employs their own voice but reads the other side of the conversation on their TTY accounted for nearly one in five calls and incoming voice calls also account for almost one in five calls made.In fact these three call types accounted for more than 95 per cent of calls received by the NRS during 2006–07.
The number of calls recorded as ‘undefined’ reflects some issues with recording inbound call types which occurred while the relay service provider was upgrading its system to allow for the provision of internet relay later in 2007.
Figure 1:Monthly inbound call types
Source of inbound calls (by unique CLI)
Usage of the NRS is well aligned with the distribution of the Australian population, with more than 80 per cent of users located in New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory, Victoria and Queensland. However, there are slightly more users proportionally in Victoria and Queensland when compared to the actual share of the population in these states.Users in Western Australia and Tasmania are slightly under-represented in relation to their populations.
Figure 2:Inbound calls by unique CLI
Outbound call types
Reflecting the nature of the service as a communication bridge between text and voice users of telecommunications, voice calls represent nearly nine in every 10 outbound calls made by the NRS.
Figure 3: Monthly outbound call types
Relay service performance in 2006–07
Availability and Operation of the NRS
The relay service provider is required to:
●operate the NRS24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year;
●ensure privacy of the content of all calls and the identity of callers (except for calls through the text emergency call service, as required by law); and
●place no limits on the length or number of calls made through the NRS.
Service options
The following call relay options are provided 24 hours a day, every day of the year, in the English language.
Table 2: Call relay options
Inbound / Call option / Call type / OutboundTTY / Modem / Voice / TTY / Voice
/ Type and read / Voice to text relay /
/ / Type and read / Text to voice relay /
/ / Type and listen / Hearing carry over (HCO) /
/ / Speak and read / Voice carry over (VCO) /
/ / Speak and read / VCO to VCO / /
/ Speak and listen / Speech-to-speech relay (SSR) /
/ / Text emergency service /
Internet relay (to be introduced in 2007–08) / /
Call Charges and Billing
Calls to the national 13 and 1300 NRS numbers incur a call connection fee determined by the caller’s telephone service provider.This cost is around the cost of a local call and applies to any call made within Australia with the exception of calls to premium rate service numbers (see below).Calls to the text emergency service (106) and to 1800 numbers are free.
Calls to international and premium rate service numbers can be made via the NRS but require an account to be established to which the costs of such calls can be charged to the caller.
Relay Service performance standards
The relay service provider was required to meet three performance standards for the 2006–07 financial year.All standards are measured as a quarterly average.
The performance standards were:
- No more than five calls per 100 into the relay service will receive a busy signal (quarterly average).
- No more than 0.5 per cent of emergency calls into the relay service receive a busy signal (quarterly average).
- At least 99 per cent of text emergency calls are answered by a relay officer within 10 seconds (quarterly average).
The relay service provider met these performance standards in 2006–07.Details are presented below.
Call blockage: general NRS – no more than five calls per 100 into the relay service will receive a busy signal (quarterly average)
Figure 4: Call blockage rates
The call blockage performance standard is designed to measure the availability and accessibility of the NRS.As the figure above shows, the relay service provider met the required call blockage performance standard during 2006–07, remaining below the five per cent limit in each quarter.