Second meeting held 25/02/02 at Oftel

Present: Frank Phillips (Convenor), Rob Borthwick, Caroline Jacobs, Viv Pozo, Tony Shipley, Steve Tyler, Nick Young, (Betty Willett, Palantypist)

The main actions arising from the first meeting were:

(1) for RB/NY to produce a draft table of contents for a CoP

(2) for CJ/VP to identify where the market was failing customers with disabilities by bringing together readily available knowledge and experience.

Draft table of contents

NY introduced the draft saying it was intended to achieve two things: meeting Part III of the DDA and incorporating best practice. The marriage of these two would form the basis of a CoP for the industry. Elements from the British Bankers Association (BBA) CoP had been drawn on to provide a starting off point.

It was recognised that the DDA + best practice approach combined the general and the particular, the former being long-term and the latter potentially quite ephemeral. An interpretation of DDA requirements could broadly apply to any industry, whereas the best practice sections would be specific and focus on, to take one example, appropriate auxiliary aids and services.

The intention was to keep the draft customer focused, by answering the question - what should I as a customer expect? This sets a sound foundation for any relationship between a potential user and a service provider. The best practice approach is derived from the Employers Forum on Disability's nine-point agenda on customers:

• policy and top level commitment
  
• market research
  
• design of products and services for all
  
• physical environment
  
• staff training and disability awareness
  
• communication with customers
  
• influencing other organisations
  
• involvement in the wider community
  
• monitoring performance

The full text of the EFD nine-point agenda is available at

It was generally agreed that the draft provided a useful platform on which to build but would need to have extra sub-headings (eg good practice applied to consultation and informing customers) and be fleshed out with more specifics.

The point was also made that in a competitive environment providers are extremely focused on all their customers. It is in their own interests to review existing services and plan new services in consultation with as many representatives of customers as they can lay their hands on, and subsequently to publicise those services. Universal service, as now understood, involves all customers being offered a wide choice of service options rather than the older 'charitable provision' model.

Where the markets are not satisfying customer requirements

CJ and VP identified some areas where customers with disabilities felt they were not being well served. These areas (not in any order of priority) include:

• user-friendly voice recognition systems that are easier to set up (this is more to do with being able to control your phone rather than its output)
• better designed terminals for people with limited manual dexterity (eg larger keys, less sensitive buttons)
• the continuing hearing-aid interference problem
• textphone equivalence (real-time text), connectivity to textphones, textphone access to network services such as top-up schemes
• better screens, audible feedback on phone features (eg menus, battery indicators), variable font sizes
• neck loops and hands-free (recognised as having a wider application than hearing-impaired users)
• multiple ways of accessing dynamic text.

Other issues that were regarded as equally important were monitoring and enforcing the Code, promoting and publicising services, better training for retail staff (one speaker reported on an unsatisfactory experience in trying to obtain information about neck loops from a variety of retail outlets). There seems to be a genuine problem that information about and availability of auxiliary aids and services that already exist is poor.

Another issue raised was the ability to access emergency services by SMS, although it was recognised that the service provider component was less of a problem than that of an appropriately facilitated emergency control centre.

CJ accepted a request to group the particular requirements she had identified into customer segments, while emphasising that the divisions were not so clear-cut in real life. Older customers, in particular, required a variety of features. It was also recognised that prioritisation was not easy - there were contrasting approaches based on the largest demographic as opposed to severity of impairment. There needed to be a degree of compromise based on what is actually feasible.

One way forward might be the high-level solution that caters for different segments: a unified messaging service delivering in a variety of formats helps both hearing- and visually impaired customers.

There was also a discussion on the relations between providers and equipment suppliers, and how much influence the former can bring to bear on the latter. It was recognised that an individual provider has only a slender amount of market power when dealing with a relatively small number of global handset manufacturers. One idea that might bring manufacturers closer to customers would be the development of a rapid development programme so that potentially helpful features could be worked over by development teams to test their feasibility. Another point made was that manufacturers tend to work on a front end/back end basis so that while the front end focuses on particular market segments (eg business, youth) the back end is developing particular technologies. In developing new accessibility features one would hope to influence the back end but this is evidently more fruitful if there is a front-end tie-in, hence the importance of segments.

A discussion of "design for all" concluded that it did not require every phone to have every accessibility feature.

The size of the potential market was discussed - if you combine the 8m. people with a disability with the greying population you have an enormous potential market although it has to be recognised they don't all want the same thing. From an industry standpoint if mobile penetration is going to be increased from approx. 70% to about 85% you have to consider which areas of the potential market do not think they are being served at present.

The possibility of manuals in alternative formats, supplemented by more assistance at the point of sale was discussed. This was an issue that would become prominent in any case with the arrival of 3G phones - customer education for all would be paramount when phones were more sophisticated and had more options and greater functionality.

Next meeting

The next meeting will be held at 10.30 on Monday, 8 April. The agreed actions before that meeting are:

CJ to rearrange the list of requirements to reflect market segments.

All to comment on the draft CoP table of contents and identifying omissions

RB/NY to draft some sections of the CoP, depending on input received

RB/NY to confirm that the industry was willing to accept ownership of the CoP

FP to address concerns over enforcement issues by inviting Chris Rowsell (Oftel) to sit in at the next meeting for a Q&A session on how CoPs fit into the new regulatory framework.

It is also anticipated that WGHI will be offering the group an input. I shall circulate this when I receive it.