Ministerial conference on knowledge and information society, April 10-11, 2000, Lisbon - Portugal
Towards Accessible Total Conversation
Presentation for the Citizens with special needs track
by
Gunnar Hellström, Omnitor AB
Alsnögatan 7, 4 tr, S-116 41 Stockholm, Sweden
Voice Phone: +46 708 204 288
Total Conversation and Text Telephone +46 8 556 002 05
Fax: +46 8 556 002 06
E-mail:
Academic Qualifications: Master of Science, Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, 1966
Rapporteur in ITU-T SG16,Q9: Accessibility to Multimedia for people with disabilities
Abstract
Voice telephony has become an important means of communication, holding our society together, but it can not be used directly by everyone. Deaf, hard-of-hearing, deaf-blind and speech-impaired people need alternative telecommunication services that must be available on equal terms.
Personal conversation through telecommunications can now take a big step towards accessibility for all by implementing the new Total Conversation concept. Future telecom services can be based on this standardised concept for multi modal conversation, and allow users to communicate in video, text and voice simultaneously.
Apparent use is for real time text conversation, lip reading, sign language and voice conversation and any mix of these ways to communicate. For interworking with the existing telecom services, it is defined how all kinds of text telephones, voice telephones and video phones can communicate with total conversation devices.
Europe has a sad history of a fragmented world of six text telephone systems with no interworking. The Total Conversation standards offers a bridge for smooth communication with them all.
The concept is defined in all major telecom network environments; analogue and digital, traditional circuit switched as well as modern packet based. The standards are formed by the international telecom standardisation bodies ITU-T (International Telecommunications Union) and IETF (International Engineering Task Force). The center of the activities has been the group for Accessibility to Multimedia for people with disabilities in ITU-T, while the work is done in diverse groups on different technologies, where experts from many companies have contributed to the result. Work continues with refining specification of interworking and mobile application of the concept.
Implementations begin to emerge. Total Conversation has proven to be an excellent tool for personal conversation for deaf and hard-of hearing people, for speech impaired, for deaf-blind and for anyone. It is always possible to find a media combination that supports the common way of communication that is selected for the moment by the users.
By adding services for transformation between different media, the accessibility to telecommunications can be even enhanced. One important such service is the video relay service, translating between sign language and spoken language. When that service is invoked, both the sign language user and the spoken language user can use the language they master best and have a fluent conversation on equal terms. Also enhanced text relay services can be established between text users and voice users, with the voice channel connected through all the time.
Society support
The need for solutions on the inferior communication situation for people with special needs has been acknowledged by society. In the resolution on Sign Language B4-0985/98, item no 10, the European Parliament "Calls on the Commission to introduce a proposal for framework legislation to ensure compatibility of telecommunications text and videophone equipment for deaf people across Europe;"
Total Conversation can be the technical response on that request.
Recommendations to get from standards to wide spread use.
Standards for communication are important prerequisits for successful distribution and benefit of a telecom feature. But standards alone makes no user happy. Implementation of the standardized Total Conversation concept for video, text and voice communication needs encouragement, stimulation and support from society, to ensure equal opportunities of personal communication for citizens who cannot use voice telephony fully.
Efforts are proposed for inclusion into pilot implementation projects reaching many users in many member states. Product and service validation organised with society support is also proposed, in order to ensure interoperability between Total Conversation in different networks, from different service operators and product manufacturers. Support is proposed for further standardization as needs appear in the implementation process. Knowledge must be spread, so that new telecom features will include the concept when they appear.
Relay services for translation between modes of conversation is a further enhancement of great benefit to the users that should be encouraged.
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