Sarah Playforth: What a captioned telephone service could offer deaf people

When Damian Barry set up a FaceBook group to campaign for provision of a captioned telephone service in the UK, he found many people were keen to share their views on why current systems for deaf and hard of hearing people are stressful, slow, limited and lack privacy.

When I began following the group, I found many people had difficult experiences which I’m sharing here:

“The telephone has been my bugbear all my life, I refer to its universal use as ‘the tyranny of the telephone’. I’ve always disliked having to use relay. I can hear some of a call with my CI now, but I’m anxious with every call and never give it as my preferred method of contact. It’s no way as reliable as text on screen is for me, that will always be my preference. I think full access to telephony should be a legal right, not just a reasonable adjustment.”

“I have experienced interfering in my calls, talking to person I am calling and bringing 3rd person in conversation which is causing confusion. On one occation, the assistant wanted to know all options available for Barclaycard which I already knew thus making the call longer than needed. I use only speak and read and assistant involvement in conversation is not necessary.”

“We certainly need this in the Uk for all of us with a hearing loss to retain our independence and freedom , especially now with our health as getting an appointment face to face with a Gp or a health professional is getting less as telephone calls are being offered instead.”

“I had a job offer taken off me because of the amount of telephone useage involved despite the fact that telephone work was not enclosed on the job description. It lead to a grievance against the employer for disability discrimination. If this service was available in the UK, I am sure it would have been a very different story.”

“Hi everyone. I m really fed up of having to ask my partner to make phone calls for me. I dont always get the full story of what is being said either. I tend to use email but this takes up so much time especially when I have quite a few to send. The captioned phones that are shown in this group look great and yes they should be available in the uk. Let’s hope it wont be long before we get them.”

“I e-mailed my audiology dept for an urgent appointment last week and asked them to respond by e-mail or text as I can not use a telephone and do not have a text phone. Today, they texted me to give me a number to call for an appointment. You couldn’t make it up.”

“I too hate to use the phone so I have to rely on family and friends to make phone calls for me. I’ve tried Relay but is not useful for most numbers so I find this disappointing.
Just wish there was more help out there for people like us.
I know the feeling when people do get rude on the phone when they can’t be bothered to repeat or speak slower, I get angry with them.”

“…captioned phone calls would have changed my life. Ever since I left school I struggled with phones, because in those days all business was conducted by phone. The words “Give me a ring” struck fear and loathing into my heart because I had many horrible experiences on the phone…For some conversations nothing will do but to speak directly to the person concerned. Any hearing person will tell you that and Text Relay is just too slow and clunky…The worst thing I ever had to do is tell the rest of the family, by Text Relay that my mother had died. This is something that should be done directly, not by proxy.”

What’s the answer?

There is technology that can provide text in real time rather than voice from the person you are calling, in response to your speech, but it’s not available in the UK.

Captioned phones provide the user with text to read what the caller is saying to them. This has been an option for about 20 years in the United States and some parts of the world yet it is not available in the UK because Ofcom will not approve this as another relay provider. We currently have BT Text Relay UK which allows calls at 40 – 60 words a minute. Caption Telephones work at 120 words or more a minute, the speed of a normal conversation. No prefix numbers are needed so people can call you on your number direct.

For further comparisons, see this chart:

If you want to see this service in the UK, you can join a FaceBook group campaigning for it, with further information to be found on their page:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/452486952740047 

Sarah says: “I was born in 1951. am profoundly deaf, have been lipreading all my life and my first language is English. I only met other deaf people when I was 17. Since then, I’ve learnt BSL and although I am an excellent lip reader, my preferred communication is BSL with some lip pattern and fingerspelling, something that has been a huge problem for me all my life is telephone calls with voice. Nothing is really satisfactory, though each advance has been exciting , from the weighty TTY which used huge rolls of paper to print texted calls between deaf people through to minicoms, uniphones, and Vistel. I’ve had some involvement at every stage and the photo of me here at work (see left) back in the 80s shows Vistel 2. Calls between deaf people and sign language users, whether texted or signed or a mix of communication, are pretty simple now. What we do not have is a way to get true equity when using the phone with hearing people.”