911 texting service made available for deaf community
Posted March 19, 2014 11:50 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – A member of Metro Vancouver’s deaf community says it’s something she and many others have been waiting for a long time.
Janice Lyons with the Western Institute for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing says she is very excited about the launch of a service that allows people who aren’t able to talk on the phone, to text 911.
Lyons says this will make a huge difference.
“This will make 911 accessible to this part of the community. I believe that they will feel safer, and not have to rely on the ‘hearing’ community in order to get help, fast,” she says.
She says difficulties people have faced in the past have included not being able to hear the operator on the other end, not knowing if someone has answered, or having to rely on a neighbour to call for them.
“I believe that the community has been waiting for this service since the first text phone came out. Previously we had been using the TTY but that would only be able to be used as a landline. As cell phones became more of a necessity than a luxury the use of TTY’s has dwindled. It has been a struggle as no one seemed to have any knowledge on how to set this system up. The CRTC finally told the phone companies that it was an important issue and to set it up.”
Lyons is hoping it will advance even further, saying in the US, there is a video relay service that works like Facetime or Skype.
It connects people with an interpreter who then translates the call.
Lyons would like to see that here, adding it’s being reviewed by the Canadian Radio-televisionTelecommunications Commission.
The service is just available to those who are deaf, hard of hearing, and speech impaired in Metro Vancouver, in parts of the Squamish Lillooet region, and on the Sunshine Coast.
You need to register your phone at www.TextWith911.ca to use the service.
