IT Accessibility Review
Volume 1, Number 5
IT Accessibility Legal Briefs
FCC Proposes Fines Over Emergency Info
WASHINGTON (AP)-- Federal regulators on Wednesday proposed $65,000 in fines against three California television stations for failing to provide timely captions and graphics for deaf or partially deaf viewers about emergency information related to wildfires in 2003.
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Texas Sues Nation´s Largest Internet-Based Phone Service Provider, Vonage, for 911 Inaccessibility
HOUSTON, Texas (AP) -- The lawsuit follows another case when a 17-year-old Houston girl was unable to call 911 on her family´s Vonage service during an armed robbery in which her parents were shot and wounded. The girl ran to a neighbor´s home and called for help.
The suit was filed under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act and seeks to require Vonage Holdings Corp. to more clearly inform consumers that they must separately sign up for the 911 feature.
"People find out too late that this service might not be available," Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said at a news conference attended by members of the family whose home was robbed.
Vonage representative Brooke Schulz said customers are informed of the separate activation on two pages on the Internet registration form. She also said that e-mail notifications are sent to customers who fail to activate the emergency service.
"We´re at a loss as to what they want us to change, but we´re open to any changes they want," Schulz said.
Abbott wants Vonage to include the information in advertising and include a check-off on the service agreement to make sure people know.
He said information about the type of emergency service Vonage offers is found in the fine print on the website, but it is not explained on television commercials or brochures. Customers who sign up for service through call centers also are not told.
The lawsuit seeks $20,000 per violation. Abbott said he did not know how many violations there would be.
Edison, New Jersey-based Vonage has more than 500,000 subscribers.
Database Systems Corp. Announces Message Broadcasting Support for TTY / TDD Hearing Impaired Devices
March 7, 2005 -- Database Systems Corp. (DSC) provides voice and message broadcasting systems and services that include messaging to hearing impaired phone devices. These are generally referred to as TTY (Teletype) and TDD (Telecommunications Devices for the Deaf).
Messages can be delivered to both standard phone systems and special TTY / TDD devices. For standard phone lists, messages can be recorded voice messages or texts which are converted to voice wave files. For TTY directed phone lists, this message broadcasting system accepts a text message and phone list containing the phone numbers that are answered by special TTY devices. This system converts text to a TTY / TDD compatible message and transmits this message to each of the numbers contained in the phone list.
Emergency notification for the hearing impaired can now be performed automatically using this service. Current applications for message broadcasting include meeting notifications, church announcements, school event notifications, and marketing programs.
DSC provides a utility that helps administrators create TTY messages online for use with our message broadcasting systems and services. This TDD application can be invoked from an API routine as well. It can also be embedded in your website. Your messages can be transmitted to us in text form and our broadcasting service will automatically convert it to a TTY format.
Database Systems Corp. was founded in 1978 and provides products and services for the call center industry. Products include business phone systems, computer telephone products and CRM application software. Further information about DSC can be found at our website - www.databasesystemscorp.com. EasyIVR is our service division and provides call answering services and voice message broadcasting. This service is fully described at our www.easyivr.com website.
For our emergency broadcasting service, visit:
www.911broadcast.com.
Disabled Program Changes Decried and Former RSA Chief Faults Consolidation
The woman who, until recently, led the federal government effort to get the nation´s disabled into the workforce is lashing out at the Bush administration, saying it is quietly attempting to "dismantle" programs critical to helping the blind, deaf, and otherwise disabled find jobs.
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