John Maucere Video: Texting and Driving
A vlog of actor John Maucere’s performing his “Don’t Text and Drive” can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg6U0Snczc4.
It is a two-minute public service announcement with an important message, sponsored by Sprint Relay. Performed in ASL, the video has music and sound effects.
- Thanks to NVRC, Fairfax
Wireless Phone News and Queries
Apple Fined for Not Filing Hearing Aid Compatibility Status Report
How’s Your iPhone or Droid?
Using Your Cell Phone with Speakerphone Feature?
Apple Fined for Not Filing Hearing Aid Compatibility Status Report
Apple, Inc. has been fined $5,000 by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for violating the requirement to file a wireless handset hearing aid compatibility status report by the FCC’s deadline. Although Apple was given an exemption from the Hearing Aid Compatibility Act requirements for the iPhone, it still must file reports. The company can choose to appeal this fine.
Consumer organizations have strongly disagreed with the exemption granted for the iPhone. Several individuals have sent complaints to the FCC on this, as well the iPhone’s disregard of Section 255 of the Communications Act. Section 255 requires companies that manufacture and provide telecommunications products and services to address the needs of people with disabilities at the time they design, develop and fabricate those products and services.
Some individuals with hearing loss have noted that the most recent version of the iPhone has better sound quality despite its lack of hearing aid compatibility. We’ve also heard from other individuals that the iPhone’s new competitor, Verizon’s Droid, has good sound quality. Because each individual’s hearing loss is unique, even these improvements in sound quality will not be enough, and NVRC strongly supports enforcement of the hearing aid compatibility requirements and Section 255..
How’s Your iPhone or Droid?
We are interested in hearing from individuals with hearing loss who have one of these phones about how satisfied they are with the audio and what, if anything, they use to make it more understandable.
Using Your Cell Phone with Speakerphone Feature?
Also a number of individuals with hearing loss have reported that they hear conversations better when their wireless phones are set to speakerphone mode.
– Cheryl Heppner, Executive Director, NVRC (Fairfax)
911 Texting Won’t Work – Yet
Filed under: Cell Phones, Emergency Preparedness, Mobile Pagers
By Bill Leukhardt, Hartford Courant, 11/19/09
NVRC Note: There is a non-captioned video of a broadcast on this at http://www.courant.com/news/politics/hc-911texting1119.artnov19,0,2356078.story
Text messaging is perfect for casual chatting, but right now it’s useless for contacting 911 and will remain so for years, state officials and telecommunication experts testified Wednesday.
“Currently, the ability to text 911 does not exist,” Marissa Mitrovich of Verizon Wireless told the state legislature’s public safety committee at an informational hearing on using text messages to get police, fire and other emergency assistance. “It will take many years.”
The millions of text messages sent daily by cellphone users are handled equally by carriers, so a 911 message could sit for hours before it is delivered. Even then, it’s worthless, as dispatch centers don’t have the technical capacity to receive it, lawmakers heard.
No one was willing to predict how long it may take state and federal agencies and the national telecommunication industry to resolve the equipment, security and technical roadblocks to 911 texting.
Until then, it’s still best to call and talk directly to a dispatcher, said John Danaher, the state’s public safety commissioner. A call gives the 911 center the location and callback number of the telephone used and allows the dispatcher to ask questions and get more information, he said.
The hearing was triggered, in part, by the violent death of Alice Morrin, the Vernon woman who was shot to death by her estranged husband, James Morrin, on June 28. Police said Alice Morrin spent the last moments of her life frantically sending text messages to a friend seeking help. James Morrin killed her as police showed up at their house, then committed suicide.
“When I saw the media reports on that incident in Vernon, it touched me,” said Rep. Stephen Dargan, D-West Haven, the committee co-chair, said after the meeting. “I’m not familiar with texting. So I thought we could have an informational meeting and learn more about it and 911.”
Peter White, director of public policy for AT&T, said 911 texting will be possible when the nation’s emergency dispatch system is upgraded from copper-based land lines to a fiber-optic-based system capable of receiving digital information, such as texting and videos.
“That’s what’s coming sometime in the future,” he said. “Until then, if you need help, don’t go to Facebook. Don’t Twitter. Don’t send a text message. Call and talk.”
Verizon has programmed its system to discourage customers from 911 texting. When its equipment detects a 911 message, it gives the sender an error message, saying that there is no text service to 911 and that the person should “please make a voice call to 911,” Mitrovich said.
At the hearing, Danaher discussed an ambitious state project started three years ago to create a fiber-optic system linking all 107 emergency call centers, hundreds of police, fire and other first-responder stations, the judicial system and medical facilities.
The project, which will cost $58 million over 10 years, is financed by the 47-cent monthly charge paid by land-line phone subscribers to support a new emergency call system.
The first few years of the project were spent planning, but now work has begun installing fiber-optic cable in some Hartford-area towns. All the cable should be installed by 2011 and the system ready to link all the facilities in a secure, digital network that will make sharing information much easier, Danaher said.
The new system also will be able to receive text messages, once national wireless networks and the federal government figure out how to quickly and securely deliver 911 texts to emergency centers. But for a while, the state will be ahead of the curve.
“All we can do is take care of our end of the system,” Danaher said. “We’ll be ready when 911 texting can be used.”
Copyright © 2009, The Hartford Courant
- Thanks to CM and NVRC, Fairfax
The Beginning of Text Messaging
In the Wikipedia entry on text messaging, the section on the history said: “The first deaf person to send a text message was in April 1995 by David Jackson, a Deaf researcher working at the Centre for Deaf Studies within the University of Bristol; the research project he was involved in was a joint venture between the university, Orange and Nokia.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_messaging
- Thanks to Gary Viall and NVRC, Fairfax
Iowa 9-1-1 Call Center First in Nation to Go Live with Text to 9-1-1
Black Hawk County Public Safety Communications Center Now Can Receive 9-1-1Text Messages; Press Conference and Live Demonstration to Be Held on August 5th
WATERLOO, Iowa–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The Black Hawk County Iowa 9-1-1 Service Board today announced that the Black Hawk Consolidated Public Safety Communications Center can receive text messages from select wireless subscribers in the county. The call center successfully completed the text trial this past June and is now the first 9-1-1 Call Center in the country able to receive text messages directly into 9-1-1. This groundbreaking effort allows those individuals with speech and hearing impairments, or callers otherwise unable to place a voice call, to use text messaging to communicate directly with a 9-1-1 telecommunicator in an emergency.
“We are pleased that our county has become the first in the nation to successfully deploy text to 9-1-1,” said Chief Thomas Jennings, chairman, Black Hawk 9-1-1 Board. “This solution not only helps better protect our speech and hearing impaired citizens but it proves how important it is for public safety to support all forms of communication.”
To read the full story, see:
http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20090803005999&newsLang=en
- Thanks to Business Wire
Translator
Event Calendar
-
Our Sponsors
