Internet Video Relay Service on Display at Capitol
January 4, 2005
There will be an informational fair in the Capitol Rotunda on Thursday, January 13, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., featuring exciting new Internet video relay service technology to enable phone communication for deaf or hard-of-hearing Montanans.The Montana Telecommunications Access Program (MTAP) will demonstrate the Internet video relay service, a cutting-edge technological development that lets a deaf person use sign language to make a phone call to a hearing person who knows no sign language at all. By using a web cam on an Internet enabled computer, a sign language conversation can be sent to a communications assistant at a relay service, who then speaks the conversation aloud to a recipient who uses an ordinary phone.
Without video relay, a Montanan who is deaf or hard of hearing would use a text telephone to make calls through the traditional relay service, in which a communications assistant reads what they type and speaks it aloud to a recipient using a normal phone.
Connie Phelps, executive director of MTAP, said, "This is a really amazing use of computers and the Internet to open a whole new frontier of communication. The old, traditional relay just doesn't allow a real conversation. It's so much harder to express emotion or to convey the subtle nuances that so many of us take for granted in conversations. But American Sign Language is a vivid, expressive language that overcomes that problem. Enabling its use in phone calls is a fundamental step in providing equal access."
Phelps added, "What's more, it's currently free to the state. Any time you can find a way to serve Montanans with special needs at no cost to the taxpayer, it's worth holding a fair about."
The Montana Telecommunications Access Program (MTAP) provides special telecommunications tools to help deaf and hard-of-hearing Montanans use the phone. The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 mandates that individuals with disabilities must have equal access to telecommunications services, and MTAP helps meet that mandate.
Page last updated: 06/15/2006
