COAT Leaders Speak at FCC on Accessibility & Wireless Technologies

Geoff Freed at WGBH-NCAM said he "saw the DP570MH at the last week’s FCC workshop on wireless devices and it does, in fact, display closed captions.  The LG rep said it would be on the market this summer.  LG was also showing three smaller MDTV devices that were decoding closed captions from the local MDTV stream."

Matthew Gerst of CTIA spoke mostly about the importance of wireless and broadband technology to the economy. He also said that "Section 255 limits the wireless industry." He  added that CTIA wants "a flexible approach to any Section 255 updates."

Brian Fontes of NENA spoke about the explosion of wireless phone applications over the last three years.  He pointed out that most 911 centers have problems dealing with voice, data and video simultaneously, although some 911 centers are trying. Echoing CTIA's Matt Gerst, he said there should be light regulation.  He also stated that there is a need for a clearinghouse of information for people with disabilities.

Geoff Freed of NCAM talked about their many successes and reiterated the need for international harmonization for internet-based captioning for hand-held devices. He noted that there are currently over 50 ways to send captioning on wireless broadband. Echoing, Judy Harkins, he said there needs to better enforcement by the FCC of its rules.

Rebecca Schwartz of TIA mentioned the need for industry to develop mobile phones for the underserved populations within the disability community.

Jim Mueller of RERC-Wireless said that their research proves that the friendlier the device, the more likely people are to use the phone’s features. He reiterated the points made by other speakers that mobile phones have tremendous potential to assist persons with developmental disabilities because repetition improves memory, citing  the power of prompts for people with developmental disabilities. Mueller noted that battery power capacity needs improving.  He also mentioned the difficulties that users with disabilities experience in finding out information on how to use wireless phone features and the need for better publishing of this information.

Judy Harkins of the RERC-TAP spoke about the potentials of wireless broadband for people with disabilities, mentioning  mobile sign language, increase in processing speeds, better orientation using GPS, on how TRS and VRS might be strengthened, on the capacity for remote translation ability, and how better dissemination of emergency alerts might be possible.  Harkins emphasized the need for the FCC to enforce its existing regulations. In regard to hearing aid compatibility, she said that HAC wireless phones should be better publicized. She discussed the potential for more availability of wireless captioned video and speech-output for text-based messages. She said also that voice quality and fidelity of sound of wireless phones needs to be improved. Harkins also pointed to the need for text interoperability and international harmonization of standards, as a means to provide better accessibility for people with disabilities.

Google’s Jonas Klink spoke about all of the accessibility activity going on at Google and mentioned they have a hands-free home screen, provide eyes-free dialing, and there is free talk-back screen readers in some of the most widely spoken languages. He made the point that they 'use open source software to ease the efforts of independent software application developers' such as for accessibility. He added that while Google is involved in the W3C  WAI  consensus standards process, they do not follow the WAI mobile initiatives.