UNIVERSAL TELECOMMUNICATION SERVICES

Proposed arrangements for Universal Service in the UK from 1997

CHAPTER 8: Services for disabled people

Introduction

8.1 There are about 7 million disabled people in the UK. Of these, about 400,000 people are profoundly deaf and/or speech impaired and unable to use a telephone. The size of this customer group is likely to increase as the population ages - by the year 2020, it is estimated that around one in three adults will be over sixty years old. Oftel s objective is to seek to ensure that disabled people are also able to have access to basic telecoms services or their equivalent where these are universally available, at reasonable cost to the industry.

Current Provision

8.2 Services and equipment for disabled people are currently provided by telecoms operators and equipment manufacturers through a mix of licence obligations and voluntary initiatives. In addition, a number of mass market products and services are particularly useful to disabled people.

8.3 All operators have licence obligations to provide:-

• a free directory enquiry service to blind people or to others who are unable to use a printed directory; and
• telephones in public call boxes which are adapted for use with hearing aids.

8.4 BT, Kingston and Mercury are required to ensure that there are available telephones with inductive coupling for hearing aid users and sound amplification facilities.

8.5 In addition, the industry offers voluntarily a number of other services and products which meet the needs of disabled people. For example:

• BT and some other operators offer dedicated telephone numbers for customer services and directory enquiries for textphone users;
• many types of telephone offer inductive coupling or amplify speech to help hearing aid users;
• large print or braille bills are offered by some telecom companies to help visually impaired people and BT also offers the option of a talking bill for customers who want their bills read to them before they are dispatched;
• BT s Protected Service Scheme prevents the unnecessary disconnection of those at risk when indisposed;
• BT s recent offer to convert, free of charge for vulnerable customers, hardwired telephone connections to modern plug and sockets will benefit, for example, people wanting connection to community alarm systems or more user­friendly telephones of their own choice;
• large button/tactile keypads and phones with memories for storing numbers are helpful to visually or dexterity impaired people; and
• hands­free phones, cordless and mobile phones can be helpful to mobility impaired people.

8.6 In addition, to fulfill its licence obligations BT provides:-

• a Priority Fault Repair Scheme which ensures that those customers who rely on the telephone as a lifeline get priority when there is a fault; and
• a text relay service which allows BT s deaf and speech impaired customers to use the telecoms network if they have a textphone.

8.7 BT s text relay service acts as an intermediary between a hearing customer who uses an ordinary telephone and a deaf or speech impaired customer who uses a special textphone to type a message which is then communicated via the relay service. A relay service operator reads out text messages to the hearing customer, and converts incoming voice messages into text for onward transmission to the deaf customer. This service is currently delivered by Typetalk, a special unit of the Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID). Text phone users can also communicate with each other directly without using the relay service.

8.8 The majority of the funding for the service is provided by BT under Condition 31A of its licence. BT s contribution, which is capped under the terms of the Condition, was approximately £5.2m in 1995/6. BT also provides voluntarily a Text Users Rebate Scheme which is also administered by Typetalk. It gives text phone users a 60% reduction on the cost of calls subject to ceilings of £160 p.a. for hearing/speech impaired customers and £600 p.a. for customers who are both hearing and sight impaired. The cost of it was approximately £1 million in 1995/6.

8.9 Take­up of the text relay service offers scope for improvement. The number of registered users of the text relay service - about 20 000 registered users making about 40 000 calls a week - is much smaller than the potential user base of profoundly deaf and speech impaired people. This is partly because certain network and service enhancements are needed before the text relay service is likely to be made attractive to a wider market. The present log­on and registration arrangements are laborious and time consuming both for hearing and disabled customers. Typetalk estimates that 25% of call time is taken up by these procedures. In addition, users have to apply, using complex procedures, to claim the text users rebate, and special call discount offers made to the general population are not available to them. Moreover, the number and range of services available is less than for the general population.

8.10 As well as providing PCBs that can be used by hearing aid users, modern PCB kiosks are designed to be accessible to wheelchair users. The number of textphones in PCBs is also on the increase BT plans to increase the numbers from the current level of 90 to approximately 400 by the year 2000.

8.11 However, research by Oftel and DIEL, Using a Phone: People with Additional Needs: Qualitative interviews with people with a range of disabilities/Promoting Action (Oftel/DIEL 1995), has shown that public awareness and take­up of existing telecoms services and equipment needs to be improved. The telecoms industry has been urged to market these services more effectively through greater general promotion as well as better targeted information.

8.12 Another limitation of the present arrangements for the provision of services for disabled people is that many services are provided only by BT.

The Disability Discrimination Act

8.13 The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA) is a significant step forward for disabled people. The Act makes it unlawful for providers of services to discriminate against a disabled person by :

• refusing to serve;
• failing to comply with any duty imposed by the Act and set out in paragraph 8.14 below where the failure makes it impossible or unreasonably difficult for the disabled person to make use of a service;
• providing a lower standard of service or service in a worse manner; or
• providing a service on worse terms
• for a reason which relates to the disabled person s disability. The DDA applies to anyone providing a telecoms service to the public. There are no exemptions for small service providers.

8.14 The DDA places a duty on providers of services to:-

• amend practices, policies or procedures which make it impossible or unreasonably difficult for disabled people to use their services;
• remove or overcome physical barriers which make it impossible or unreasonably difficult for a disabled person to use the service; and
• provide auxiliary aids or services where this would enable or facilitate a disabled person using the service.

8.15 All telecoms operators providing services to the public will potentially be affected by the Act. Under its terms, any disabled person will have the legal right to challenge any telecoms operator who has discriminated against him in a way which is unlawful under the Act.

Oftel's proposals

8.16 Oftel considers that the DDA provides a useful framework for ensuring the delivery of the basic level of universal service to disabled people. In order to ensure that people with disabilities are able to share the benefits of using modern telecoms networks, Oftel considers that a certain level of telecommunications services for disabled people should be available from all main providers of voice telephony services. This is consistent with the requirements of the DDA. It would be of benefit both to users and to the industry to establish more formally what that level of service should be and from whom it should be available. Oftel intends to consult formally on these issues, in liaison with the Department of Social Security, during 1997 with a view to implementing appropriate arrangements in the winter of 1997/98.

8.17 With regard to the services which could be available under a DDA framework, the following list could provide the basis for further debate:

• an enhanced and extended text relay/rebate service to give deaf and speech impaired customers access to basic telephony;
• equivalent access to 999/112 emergency service;
• network recorded voice messages made accessible to deaf textphone users;
• billing and other basic printed customer information in formats accessible for blind and sight impaired people; and
• reasonable access to PCBs for wheelchair users and other disabled people including access to some public textphones for deaf/speech impaired people in public places.

8.18 Further work is needed to establish the cost of providing such services, the degree of benefit they would bring to disabled people and the extent to which they might be considered reasonable within the terms of the DDA. From the evidence available so far, Oftel believes the costs to be relatively modest. Further work is also required to establish whether a requirement to provide such a list of services might be appropriate for all public telephone operators or whether the size and/or market position of the operator should be taken into account. These issues will form the basis of the public consultation planned for later this year.

8.19 Following that consultation, Oftel would intend to proceed in concert with the Department of Social Security to implement an appropriate regulatory framework. This would take the form of licence modifications for appropriate public telecoms operators or of a voluntary industry Code of Practice. Either approach could be backed up by a Statutory Instrument under the DDA which confirmed that the arrangements met the requirements of the DDA.

8.20 As compliance with any arrangements finally agreed would be common to all operators providing telecoms services to the public, there would be no need to share any net costs that may arise by means of a funding mechanism. Instead, Oftel envisages that relevant operators would either provide the services themselves or make arrangements for their customers to get service from another provider, in a similar way to the arrangements that currently operate for 999 or directory information services.

8.21 Oftel believes that this approach using the DDA framework offers a number of advantages to both disabled consumers and the industry. For consumers, Oftel s proposed approach will involve full consultation with users representatives, a clear framework for the provision of services and an increase in the number of operators offering a range of specified services to meet their needs. Relying upon changes brought about through civil proceedings under the DDA could result in a less comprehensive range of one­off adjustments for individual disabled people carried out in isolation by individual telecoms providers. The approach set out above should avoid the need to bring civil proceedings piecemeal under the DDA.

8.22 For the industry this approach offers a clear framework for implementing their obligations under the DDA, will enhance their corporate reputations and should remove the need for defending legal proceedings.

8.23 Oftel welcomes initial responses to the ideas in this Chapter, to help inform the more detailed consultation it intends to carry out in cooperation with the Department of Social Security (DSS).

8.24 Oftel has already consulted on the specific question of the expansion of the text relay service user base. However, before inclusion of a text relay service in any new arrangements under the DDA, Oftel expects BT to undertake network enhancements to overcome the problems outlined at paragraph 8.9 above. The improvements envisaged would make the log­on, billing and registration processes appear automatic to the caller, offering substantial cost savings and making the service more comprehensive and user­friendly. By allowing for automatic recognition of text calls, these enhancements may also make it possible for all operators to offer access to a text relay service and automatic rebate tariffs to their customers. Access to the emergency services could be achieved simply by dialling 999 with the call automatically routed to staff trained in handling emergency calls from text users, and voice announcements would be translated to text enabling text users to benefit from call return and other advanced services. By dramatically reducing call set up and wrap up times, BT estimate that these improvements could double the volume of service provided with no increase in cost.

8.25 Oftel expects BT to consult with the rest of the industry and customer representatives as early as possible on how these improvements could be best implemented and how operators generally might provide text relay services to their customers bases. The Network Interoperability Consultative Committee (NICC) could be utilised to discuss technical issues and the Interconnect Policy Forum (IPF) could play a part in wider discussions concerning cooperation between operators. It is envisaged that it will take 2 years for the necessary technical changes to the network to be brought into effect. Oftel would be concerned about any slippage to this timetable.

Question:

13 Do respondents support Oftel s proposals for meeting the needs of disabled people through the framework set by the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 ?

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