ITU-T Workshop on
“Telecommunications relay services for persons
with disabilities ”
(Geneva, 25 November 2011)
Future Swiss and EU e-accessibility
Visions for regulatory & policy
communications aspects
Nuno Encarnação
OFCOM(CH)
Geneva, 25 November 2011
Swiss & EU
regulatory and policy basics
EU directives on e-communications
networks and services underline
user’s rights, incl. accessibility for all citizens
EU policy in e-inclusion and e-accessibility
is well known and active in several fronts
A report on ensuring equivalence in access and
choice for disabled end-users is published and
Its public consultation results are available
Swiss law is independent but evolves
in general taking in account EU regulatory and
policy concepts developments
Geneva, 25 November 2011
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Swiss & EU
regulatory and policy examples
‘reach112’,
EU emergency services for all citizens
Monitoring ‘e-accessibility’ progress,
to monitor the status and progress, best
practices, bench marking…
Standardization work and particularly
mandates, like the one on
accessibility requirements for public
procurement of ICT products and services
Geneva, 25 November 2011
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Swiss case
general aspects
The Swiss Disability Discrimination Act
establishes general principles applicable to all
sectors, incl. public transport, telecom, TV and
others
The Federal Bureau for Equality of People
with Disabilities, FBED
may suggest improvements in particular sectors
and facilitate measures, including financing of
innovative projects to improve equality of
persons with disabilities
Geneva, 25 November 2011
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Swiss case
general aspects, some measures
Swiss administration and those fulfilling
public tasks of the Confederation (Post,
Railways…) have tighter accessibility rules
Swiss administration publishes guidance
e.g. for barrier-free websites, mobility for
disabled, useful contacts in Switzerland
The organization ’access for all’, cofinanced by OFCOM, analyzes some 100
Swiss web sites accessibility
results will be published in November 2011
Geneva, 25 November 2011
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Swiss case
telephony relay services [RS]
Free telephony relay services [RS] are in
telecom Universal Service [US] (Telecom
Act and legislation); they are financed
from the overall income of this sector
Swisscom is the US licensed provider and
Procom is the organization to whom relay
services are subcontracted
Service providers offer free access to RS
Geneva, 25 November 2011
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Swiss case
relay services [RS], some statistics (1)
RS Clients are some 1’000 to 3’000 of the
7’000 estimated potential users
RS are available 24h/day and 7days/week
35 operators work normally in 4h sessions
80% of the calls are handled in 3…5sec,
but users may wait for an available operator
answering calls takes 15sec (average)
Operators transmit 80words/minute (average)
A trial video telephony is starting (2011)
Geneva, 25 November 2011
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Swiss case
relay services [RS], some statistics (2)
RS usage decreased last decade [2009]
Due to increasing usage of sms, Internet video
telephony and text exchange via Internet,
but new services and new interfaces are
bringing clients back
Sources of information:
French Authorities organized an evaluation of
the needs for telephony services of hearing
impaired persons in different countries
Swiss Authorities studied the statistical
characterization of social impact of the handicap
Geneva, 25 November 2011
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Swiss case
telecom accessibility, other measures
Part of the telecom US are also
Accessible public payphones
Accessible directories
for blind and mobility impaired
SMS – relay services
for deaf and hard of hearing people
Geneva, 25 November 2011
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Swiss case
TV
Radio and Television Act (RTVA) requires
relevant content providers to support
Captioning/ Subtitling
Sign language
Audio description
relevant telecom providers must distribute
above services (RTVA requirement)
SRG/SSR ensures national public service
Also here the costs of accessibility are covered
by all citizens using the services
Geneva, 25 November 2011
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Trends and visions
convergence effects
Convergence(s) broadcast-telecom and
fixed-mobile services create synergies and
Facilitate quicker and wider availability of new
interesting devices, features and services
Broadcast functions may easily be useful to
telephony services and vice versa
‘Fixed network’ services are now easily
available to citizens with mobility impairments
Investments on accessibility features can be
shared by a wider range of usages…
…Convergence is pushing prices downwards
Geneva, 25 November 2011
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Trends and visions
total communication for all
Total communication for all may mean
video-telephony associated to
captioning/ subtitling and
other metadata (e.g. sign language , audio
description and other data)
It could imply the ‘Universal Service’
(ensured by law to all) to include…
synchronized transmission of audio/ voice,
video, text and other data for
conversational/ interactive services like
videotelephony, TV and Internet access
Geneva, 25 November 2011
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Trends and visions
future relay services [RS]
Video telephony could be included in the
RS provided in the context of the universal
service of electronic communications
If so, synergies will be created between policy/
regulation for content (TV, VoD) distribution
and telephony services
… and captioning/ sub-titling for TV would be
comparable to relay services for telephony…
Geneva, 25 November 2011
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Trends and visions
future relay services evolution…
Geneva, 25 November 2011
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Trends and visions
captioning and automatic translation
Captioning and automatic translation (incl.
to the sign languages) is likely to have
very positive impact
on content distribution/ broadcast
and on the future (video) telephony
Human intervention in RS would still be
necessary for higher performing services
but such automated RS (probably lower
performing, at least in the beginning)
would be possible 24h/ 24h, virtually for all,
probably at lower costs
Geneva, 25 November 2011
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Trends and visions
mobility
Increased mobility and enhancements of
ICT terminals
are already benefitting a very wide population
e.g. impaired people, incl. with mobility
impairments
Mobile terminals may also in the future be
a complement for a TV or other services,
building hybrid systems adding information,
e.g. blogs on the going TV program, audio
description of the emission…
Geneva, 25 November 2011
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Trends and visions
advantages of being inclusive
People with specific disabilities are often
minorities
Including ageing and multicultural population
(particularly people having mother languages
different from local ones) may facilitate the
development of new devices and services
A wider population base may justify some new
developments, at least it facilitates business
cases and may stimulate economical reasoning
behind the social and legal justifications
Geneva, 25 November 2011
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Trends and visions
increasing complexity
Above trends look promising for all but
We need a careful observation of the evolution
to ensure all citizens their essential rights and
prevent undue developments
Tracking e-accessibility environment
evolution, particularly in ICT sector,
will be a hard task due to complexity, wideness
of the scope and the evolution rate
This requires a permanent surveillance
standardization offers an excellent environment
to study solutions to e-accessibility issues
Geneva, 25 November 2011
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Questions?
Thank you
for your attention
nuno.encarnacao@bakom.admin.ch
Geneva, 25 November 2011
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