New FREE Services for Deaf or Hard of Hearing

If your nonprofit or library works with supporters or community members who have difficulty hearing or are deaf, there's a cool new freebie out there to help ensure that people can communicate well by phone with you and everybody else. Please feel free to share this info with your networks, local community centers, or health care facilities.

As of January 2009, American Network has "been approved by the Federal Communications Commission to provide IP Relay, Video Relay Services (VRS) and Internet Protocol Caption Telephone Service (IPCTS)." This phone captioning service is free because it is funded by the Federal Communications Commission. 

PhoneCaption.com provides free captioning for telephone calls to help those who are hard of hearing. PhoneCaption.com supports standard phones and IP phones and sends voice dialogue via text through the Internet or your IP phone screen. The caller receives captions to read of what is being said, via the web or a Cisco 79XX IP phone screen display for example.

In addition to the phone captioning, they also provide FreeRelay.com, a text or instant messaging relay service where calls are relayed through a live "Communication Assistant" 24 hours a day.

There are an estimated 1 million deaf people and nearly 10 million hard of hearing in the U.S. This service can provide new methods of communicating for many of these people who may not have special relay equipment and would prefer to use their phone, Internet connection, or VoIP to make calls.