Essay About Sign Language Relay Services And Deaf People

Ict In South Africa
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Information and Communication Technology (ICT) developments have recently exploded to yield potential
telecommunication opportunities for Deaf people in ways that were only imagined not so long ago. The state-ofthe-
art technology promises multimedia (text, voice and video) and multifunctional devices for home, work and
mobile systems for the Deaf. Internet-based devices and protocols are rapidly augmenting and replacing Public
Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) based solutions and services. Pager and cell phone Short Message Service
(SMS) are becoming prevalent for Deaf users because of their wireless mobile nature (Nelson and Underschultz,
2003). The unbridled success of text messaging has fueled demand for visual-based wireless communication to
support sign language-based remote communication. Text and sign language relay services exist, but they are
not ubiquitous (Bergmeister, Dotter, Hilzensauer, Krammer, Okorn, Orter, Skant, and Unterberger, 1999).
As long as two Deaf users have the same non-audio (text, video) communication device or service, they do not
need a relay service. These services include TTY, SMS (text messaging), email, chat, fax and video telephony.
However, when either one of the Deaf people has a different device/service, or the other person is a hearing
person and uses a different mode or language, a relay service is required. State-of-the-art technology for Deaf
relay telephony converts text and video to speech (and back) via either the PSTN or the Internet. Most of these
services employ a human relay operator to convert a Deaf user’s text/signing into speech, and a speaking user’s
speech into text/signing. Some systems are even semi-automated.
Examples of text-based relay over the PSTN include the Royal National Institute for the Deaf’s Typetalk at
British Telecom (www.typetalk.org), TalkingText (www.talkingtext.net), AT&T TTY Relay Service
(www.consumer.att.com/relay), Australian Communication Exchange’s (ACE) National Relay Service (NRS),
and Sprint Relay (www.sprintrelayonline.com). PSTN—based relay has also found its way to mobile devices,