October 15, 2008
Deaf people lobby MPs over phones
Deaf campaigners fighting for equal access to the telephone are lobbying MPs at a reception in parliament. The BBC reports.
"Consortium group TAG said deaf people are being held back in their jobs and lives because phone technology is no longer easily available or affordable.
The deaf are able to communicate using phone systems which either turn speech into text and vice versa or use sign language interpreters via video link.
Another system called captioned telephony, which uses speech recognition technology to convert an operator’s voice into text, closed in December for funding reasons.
"Much better access has been shown to be within grasp, but most of the services that deliver it have folded because they are too expensive for deaf individuals."
TAG's reception for MPs is being held at Portcullis House under its campaign "Bringing Deaf Telecoms into the 21st Century".
The group represents all the main UK deaf organisations concerned with telecoms and broadcasting.
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