From HLAA
Brenda Battat's efforts have gotten press coverage for Hearing Loss
Association regarding hearing aid compatible phones. We need more cell
phone compatibility. We only have the choice of a skimpy few. We also
want t-coil compatibility. Brenda is on the job for you, me and all
people with hearing loss. Read notices below and please spread the
word.
~Toni
Toni Barrient
Director of Member Services
Hearing Loss Association of America
(formerly Self Help for Hard of Hearing People, Inc.)
7910 Woodmont Ave Ste 1200
Bethesda, MD 20814
tbarrient%40hearingloss.org">tbarrient
hearingloss.org <tbarrient%40hearingloss.org>
________________________________
From: Brenda Battat
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2007 10:11 AM
To: Brenda Battat
Subject: Press story on our HAC efforts
Dear Advocates
Below is a story that appeared in a telecommunications daily paper about
our efforts to get more HAC wireless phones. We have another negotiation
meeting with industry - carriers and manufacturers - today to discuss a
proposal
Brenda Battat
Associate Executive Director
Hearing Loss Association of America (formerly SHHH)
301-657-2248 phone
301-913-9413 fax
ADVOCATES FOR HEARING IMPAIRED PRESS FOR NEW HAC BENCHMARKS
Advocates for the hearing impaired say the FCC should adopt additional
benchmarks to ensure that more digital mobile phones are compatible with
hearing aids, and they say they are negotiating new milestones with the
wireless industry.
For their part, hearing aid manufacturers say the Commission should
analyze what obstacles remain to greater deployment of hearing aid
compatible (HAC) mobile phones, and they express concern that there has
been "a constant chipping away at the regulatory structure."
In joint comments filed in Wireless Telecommunications docket 06-203,
seven entities that advocate on behalf of the hearing impaired hailed
the progress that has been made in ensuring mobile phones are compatible
with hearing aids, but they stress that more work needs to be done.
The Commission sought comments by today as the staff prepares a report
on the agency's hearing aid compatibility (HAC) rules for digital mobile
phones, which were adopted in 2003. The Commission plans to use the
report to consider whether it should modify its HAC requirements,
including adopting benchmarks past 2008, when half of all digital phones
for each air interface must meet the acceptable interference standard.
"The FCC's 2003 mandates have, in fact, been effective in increasing the
ability of hearing aid users to locate and use digital wireless
telephones," the hearing-impaired advocate groups said. "However, more
still needs to be done to give people with hearing loss equivalent
access to the wireless phone system that is used worldwide."
The organizations pressed the FCC to adopt additional benchmarks, saying
the current rules "set a low bar. Although the FCC's wireline rules
require virtually 100% of all wireline phones to be HAC, the Commission
will only require 50% of all digital wireless handset models for each
air interface to meet the acceptable radio frequency interference
standard (M3/4) by February 18, 2008. Even fewer phones are required to
provide inductive coupling: only two for each air interface, with no
future benchmarks.
"At the time that the above benchmarks were adopted," the organizations
added, "they represented a compromise among consumers and industry.
Consumers understood the technical challenges that faced industry and
therefore agreed to the above phase-in. But we remain concerned about
the future of cell phone accessibility." The problem could only worsen:
31 million Americans currently suffer from hearing loss, and the figure
is expected to reach 40 million by 2010, the organizations said.
The organizations said they are "currently participating in negotiations
with members of the wireless industry in an attempt to determine
mutually agreeable benchmarks for a new phase-in of the hearing aid
compatibility requirements. . . . It is our hope to reach an agreement
and present these benchmarks to the FCC during the reply stage of this
proceeding."
In addition to requiring that a higher percentage of handsets are
compatible with hearing aids, the groups said the Commission should
encourage the industry to work toward meeting the higher technical
rating - M4 and T4 - for them. If companies fail to accomplish that, the
agency should mandate it, the organizations said.
They also asked the Commission to take a number of other actions,
including (1) enforcing the requirement that carriers provide in-store
testing of HAC handsets and clarifying that it applies to all HAC
phones, (2) requiring labeling of phone packaging and other
informational materials to be consistent, (3) and mandating that
carriers train their personnel so they can adequately can help consumers
shopping for HAC phones.
The organizations said the additional actions were needed because
carriers aren't always following the current HAC regulations to the
letter of the law. For example, many mobile phone stores still don't
allow consumers to test phones, they said. Also, many store personnel
aren't familiar enough with HAC handsets to help customers. In addition,
the HAC labeling of handsets has sometimes differed between their boxes
and information on carriers' web sites.
Filling the comments were the Hearing Loss Association of America, the
Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, the
American Academy of Audiology, the American Association of People with
Disabilities, the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Consumer Advocacy Network,
the National Association of the Deaf, and Telecommunications for the
Deaf and Hard of Hearing.
In its comments, the Hearing Industries Association (HIA), which
represents hearing aid manufacturers, said it "believes that the
Commission should be encouraged by the progress that has been made
toward achieving the goal of enabling hearing aid users to enjoy the
full benefits of cell phone and PCS [personal communications service]
usage. . . . The questions the Commission should ask in its upcoming
report should focus on moving further toward the ultimate goal of
achieving full compatibility."
HIA expressed concern "about what appears to be a constant chipping away
at the regulatory structure." It cites a report by an industry HAC group
overseen by the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions that
"goes on to recite one problem after another that stand in the way of
further progress."
In the report, filed in November, ATIS said that while considerable
progress has been made in deploying HAC handsets, companies would find
it difficult to meet the FCC's next mandate in 2008. The report also
questioned whether additional HAC mandates were necessary in light of
the fact that more than 90% of hearing aid wearers the ATIS program has
tested report having a mobile phone that works with their hearing aid.
The report said that manufacturers were offering more than 108 models of
HAC-compliant devices, and carriers were marketing 93 of them.
"Thus the first question that HIA suggests the Commission ask is whether
the handset industry is still committed toward doing their best to
eliminate the hearing aid compatibility problem," HIA said. "The second
question should be why so many smaller wireless carriers have asked for
waivers of HAC requirements. More information is needed about the nature
of the handset marketplace; whether smaller carriers are being denied
access to HAC handsets or whether they are simply not making an effort
to buy them; and if there is a problem obtaining HAC handsets, what is