Mobile video communications for people who are deaf - PTS-ER-2005:14
26/04/2005
The trial project Mobile video communications for people who are deaf started in the spring of 2004 and was concluded in February 2005. This project is the seventh and concluding trial concerning broadband for people with functional disabilities that PTS has conducted on the assignment of the Government. The other six trials were conducted during the years 2002 to 2004 with a final presentation submitted to the Government in September 2004.
The aim of the trial was to investigate the benefits of video calls via 3G for people who are deaf, how well the technology supports sign language communications and to test various mobile services useful to people who are deaf. More than fifty people with sign language skills who are deaf have participated in the project, which was lead by Sveriges Dövas Riksförbund (the Swedish National Association of the Deaf – SDR). Equipped with ordinary 3G telephones and subscriptions, the participants have tested three different services: mobile video communications between people who are deaf; mobile video messages; and also a distance interpretation and communications service.
The conclusions drawn are that the use of 3G and mobile video communications will be of enormous use for people who are deaf. This has been described in terms such as “a revolution for deaf people” and “the biggest thing that has happened in the last hundred years”. The primary net gain is the potential of using one’s first language – sign language – in direct communication with other sign language users and/or with hearing people via a mobile telephone. The use of 3G is quite extensive among people who are deaf. According to SDR, an estimated 4 000 to 6 000 people who are deaf use a 3G telephone, which would represent approximately half of the number of people in Sweden who are deaf since infancy. There are, however, still inadequacies with the new technology, in the 3G networks, telephones as well as video services. For example, practical tests conducted by SDR as part of the project show that there is only one 3G telephone considered to have sufficient image succession frequency for acceptable sign language communications.
The trials of mobile video messages in sign language show that this works well and is a much appreciated service that can fulfil important functions, for example in emergency situations. However, it is expensive to download video messages; it costs 22 kronor to download a one-minute news message to a 3G telephone.
The trials of distance interpretation and communication of mobile video calls have worked very well. During the trial, 710 calls have been made to the Interpretation Centre where a person who is deaf wants to speak with a hearing person, either via a communicated call or via distance interpretation. Among users, this mobile application of interpretation services has been referred to as ‘the pocket interpreter’. The service fulfils an important function. It creates flexibility, extends accessibility to interpretation and increases the opportunity for spontaneous communications between deaf and hearing people that did not exist before. There is great demand for and many potential users of the service. It is, therefore, important that the existing communications service for videotelephony is developed to also cover video calls from 3G telephones.
As a continuing task, PTS has, among other things, decided to go further and start a development project Pocket Interpreter – distance interpretation and communication of mobile video calls via 3G. The overall aim of the project, which started in April 2005 and which will continue up to and including 28 February 2006, is to develop technology and methods to receive and administer 3G calls in the existing communications service environment.