Clearer SignalsImproving Accessibility
In June, Rebecca Schwartz, TIA's Director of Regulatory and Government Affairs, delivered a presentation at the annual convention of the Hearing Loss Association of America on TIA's latest efforts to bring accessible information and communications (ICT) technology to the hearing loss community.
At the meeting, held in Nashville, Schwartz elaborated on TIA's 2008-2009 efforts to educate legislators and policy makers in Washington, promoting the benefits of accessible technology. TIA's most recent activities included:
- Addressing accessibility under the new Administration at TIA's 10th Annual Spring Policy Summit
- Working with Congressional staff on Rep. Markey's accessibility bill
- Filing Accessibility Initiatives with President Obama's Transition Team
- Co-hosting the Accessibility Technology Fair on Capitol Hill
- Coordination with the Assistive Technology (AT) industry
Phones that are hearing-aid
compatible carry this mark
on the boxes.
Schwartz was also joined by three of the primary engineers responsible for developing the TIA-1083 standard, which was developed to reduce noise and magnetic interference in cordless telephones when used by people with Cochlear implants or T-Coil-equipped hearing aids. Al Baum of Uniden, Tony Jasionowski of Panasonic and Steve Whitesell of VTech briefed attendees on planned revisions to the standard to add identical performance requirements for wireline products with digital interfaces such as VoIP telephones, softphones running on personal computers, etc.
HLAA has posted the TIA presentation on its Web site, along with the other presentations.
TIA's Government Affairs Accessibility Working Group works on issues related to efforts to ensure that persons with disabilities have access to communications products and services.
The TIA-1083 standard was developed under TIA's TR-41 User Premises Telecommunications Requirements Engineering Committee, with consultation and participation by HLAA and Gallaudet University. 
