Real-time Text: An Essential Accessibility Feature Arnoud van Wijk, ISOC vanwijk@isoc.org Raymond Kruyer, raymond@4Ctelecom.net

Overview Information Society, the Internet in Daily Life Text Telephony, the past and present What is Real-Time text Explained The technology Part of Internet Telephony (move pstn to IP) Transcoding gateways for interworking Real-Time Text as mainstream allows freedom of communication and new services (relay and remote interpreter and mobile text telephony)

Overview R3TF, taskforce to promote real-time text (end july launched) ISOC 4C Telecom

Information Society, the Internet in Daily Life Internet started as a field for scientists and hobbyists. But now it is everywhere in daily life. Information and communication Online banking Video and TV over Internet Booking Travel (How did you come to vancouver?) More then 50% of all telephony is using the internet and that is increasing at a breakneck pace Remote Healthcare and security (fridge that orders new milk; health monitoring at home instead a Hospital)

Information Society, the Internet in Daily Life So, this means we all depend more and more on the Internet in our daily life. And not just on a computer. It also opens new possibilities in communication for people who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing But most people who build all the technology will not design for users with a disability. Most technology is designed for the general public.

Communication is peoples power We all need to communicate every day without limitations and hurdles. Communication from Deaf and Hard of Hearing (deaf) people with other people is mostly done in sign language, assistive sign, lip-reading and text (or combination thereof) The ability to communicate determine chances for people in modern society Internet made the world smaller, but it also increased remote communication. The telephone is an essential communication tool today! For last decades deaf people used fax / text telephony Fax is message based, not very interactive but was widely spread (you just hope that the person gets the fax in his/her hands in time)

Text Telephony Advantages Disadvantages To be able to make a call at a time desired by the caller Very interactive due to character by character transport Much more efficient than fax, SMS or MSN Basically similar to the way hearing people make calls  conversational text telephony Disadvantages Different standards in different regions sometimes even within one country  no international calls Hardware very expensive for hearing people Not widely spread only calls within own regional deaf community with other deaf people (island forming)

Text Telephony Deaf people are a small user group and not the general public no innovation and real improvements.  

Text communication is popular! All people are using text (e-mail, SMS and MSN/AIM/Yahoo/ICQ) more and more

Text communication is popular! Text communication is becoming a mainstream form of communication Everybody is using text now, both deaf and hearing people Because deaf people also want to be able to communicate with everybody (this is including hearing people), they are also adapting to message based forms of communication  “it’s better to have half an egg than an empty shell”

Conclusion The internet is everywhere in our daily life Text communication using the Internet is used by hearing and deaf alike Text telephony is a superior way of text communication compared to message based forms of text communication (MSN/IM), because it’s CONVERSATIONAL! For hearing people text is “a great fun extra” but in case of need for realtime conversation they will use the telephone and place a call!! For people who are deaf a voice call is not an alternative.

Text Telephones do NOT Work over Internet Internet Telephony Telephony is moving to the Internet using Voice over IP (VoIP). All focus and technology is again going to the general public, and all sound through internet is for human voice optimized. What about text telephones? Text Telephones do NOT Work over Internet

Real-Time Text Put the advantage of text telephony plus the all availability of Internet and the popularity to use text itself (MSN/IM) to create Real-Time Text over internet The text is sent and received in a fraction of a second between 2 or more people. It is the closest you get to voice using text!

Real-Time Text The disadvantages of old text telephony have disappeared. This is “Text Telephony” over Internet  TOIP Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) like techniques made this possible We also discovered that hearing people, who didn’t know about the better way of text communication, are also very enthusiastic about this way of conversational text communication Allows conversations for deaf and hearing users both. MSN/IM for a comment here and there while you do other things at same time, Real-Time Text is for good direct conversation! (no need to use the telephone!)

Real-Time Text So now we have a good chance of hearing people adapting to the superior way of communication that deaf people have been using for a long time This would be very good for deaf people all around the world because there is no longer an excuse for hearing family, friends or colleagues not to be able to make or receive a text telephone call. If you can use MSN/IM, you can also use Real-Time Text. At the same time hearing people can benefit from all the advantages of conversational text communication

The Technology Real-Time Text is designed around the ITU-T T.140 real-time text presentation layer protocol. T.140 allows real-time editing of text e.g. by using 'backspace' and retyping. T.140 is based on the ISO 10646-1 character set that is used by most IP text specifications and uses the UTF-8 format. Transport of Real-Time Text uses the same Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) as VoIP and Video-over-IP. The text is encoded according to IETF RFC 4103 “RTP Payload for Text Conversation”. And is also called Text-over-IP (ToIP)

The Technology Control of ToIP sessions has been defined using the standard Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) (RFC 3641) and the Session Description Protocol (SDP) (RFC 4566) protocols. SIP is used without any alteration. Real-time text encoding is identified by using the SDP media definition 'm=text‘. The 3GPP IMS defines the features of SDP that ToIP uses in 3GPP TS 26.114 v7.4.0 A5 See IETF RFC 5194 “Framework for real-time text over IP using the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)”.

Nice that technology but what does it mean? SIP is used to connect telephones over Internet Real-Time Text used by SIP is also called ToIP ToIP is 100% standard (which is called RFC4103). No more proprietary and incompatible text communication! If voice telephony is possible on the internet network, Real-Time Text (ToIP) will also be possible. ToIP allows the old Text Telephones to connect as well via a translation gateway since T.140 is used for both. So implementing ToIP/Real-Time Text on Internet is cheap and easy. No need for additional investments.

Real-Time Text: Internet vs. Text telephone Old hardware text telephony (fixed & national calls only) Text Telephone - Text Telephone Text Telephone - Text Telephone relay service & vice versa ToIP/Real-Time Text (anything that uses Internet) (mobile, fixed & international calls) Real-Time Text PC – Text Telephone & vice versa Real-Time Text PC – Text Telephone relay service & vice versa Real-Time Text PC – Mobile Real-Time Text Mobile Real-Time Text – Text Telephone & vice versa Mobile Real-Time Text – relay service & vice versa Mobile Real-Time Text – Real-Time Text PC Real-Time Text PC – Real-Time Text on VoIP & Video-over-IP Any Internet device with keyboard can use Real-Time Text.

Overview Real-Time Text RFC4103 (T.140/RTP/UDP) ToIP IP Network Proprietary Real-Tme text PSTN text phone Transcoding gateway Real-Time Text RFC4103 (T.140/RTP/UDP) ToIP IP Network non RFC4103 Real-time text

Real-Time Text: Conclusions Real-Time Text offers freedom never seen on the old Text telephones! Real-Time Text can be stand-alone, or be used with voice and video  “Total Conversation” RFC4103/ToIP real-time text ensures that the old text telephones can still connect. No-one left behind! Mobile text telephony is really possible as never seen before! Deaf and Hard of Hearing people are NOT left behind with old and tired technology anymore!

This is possible now!

This is possible now!

911/112 easy to reach with Real-Time Text When there is an emergency, you must always be able to call the emergency call center. Real-Time Text will allow deaf users to call directly without special textphone only numbers or special routed calls. Possible with Mobile, with video and voice. The European Commission acknowledges the need for Real-Time Text for 112

Stop talking; act now! Standardisation is very important, interoperability is key to create a user base that provides economy of scale to ensure future developments unlike with the old text telephone These future developments should be based on and influenced by user experiences Therefore users are needed and an extensive roll-out of Real-Time Text is required and in the meanwhile people will be communicating!! Real-Time Text Taskforce will do this!

Mission of the Real-Time Text Task Force: The overall mission [purpose] of the Real-Time Text Task Force is to create a clear roadmap for the testing, deployment and use of a unified, Real-Time Text framework that can be used across mainstream platforms and IP networks, thereby promoting interoperability and avoiding fragmentation caused by incompatible protocols.

The Real-Time Text Task Force will also: Act as centre of excellence for the promotion of Real-Time Text, its user requirements and the available implementations Act as an educator and awareness raiser in the field of Real-Time Text, making information available to the public, industry, and policy makers The R3TF Web site comes soon at: http://www.realtimetext.org/. Starts end of July 2008 Supported by the

About the Internet Society (ISOC) Arnoud van Wijk Disability Projects Coordinator, Internet Society IFHOH Vancouver July 2008

What is the Internet Society? Founded in 1992 by Internet Pioneers International not-for-profit organization 80+ organization members 28,000+ individual members 90+ chapters worldwide Dedicated to ensuring the open development, evolution and use of the Internet for the benefit of all people of the world. Conscience of the Internet addressing issues that endangers the future of the Internet Censorships, net neutrality (all traffic is equal) organization home for the groups responsible for Internet standards Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Internet Architecture Board (IAB). About the Internet Society July 2008

What is the Internet Society? Acts as a center for Internet information and education Coordinates and enables Internet-related initiatives around the world. For over 15 years ISOC has run international network training programs for developing countries and these have played a vital role in setting up the Internet connections and networks in virtually every country connecting to the Internet during this time. Main offices in Reston Virginia, USA, and Geneva, Switzerland Regional Bureaus: Africa (Addis Ababa, Ethiopia) Latin America and the Caribbean (Buenos Aires, Argentina) South and Southeast Asia (Suva, Fiji) About the Internet Society July 2008

What is the Internet Society? serves the needs of the growing global Internet community. From commerce to education to social issues, our goal is to enhance the availability and utility of the Internet on the widest possible scale. ISOC’s motto: The Internet is for everyone! At the start of 2008, ISOC launched a set of longer term, strategic activities, called "initiatives". The initiatives which will drive ISOC's activities in 2008-2010 are: Enabling Access InterNetWorks Trust & Identity About the Internet Society July 2008

Enabling Access Under-served communities people that use non-Latin language e.g. Chinese, Russian, Arabic etc people with disabilities, for example Deaf and Hard of Hearing people geographically remote and dispersed communities face additional challenges in accessing and use the Internet. ISOC will work towards enabling access to the Internet for people with disabilities Advance the development of technologies and the business case for facilitating the use of the Internet by people with disabilities. Educate policymakers and industry on the challenges, needs, technologies, and opportunities of increasing Internet access and usage for people with disabilities. About the Internet Society July 2008

Conclusion ISOC is the organisation that creates and maintains internet standards. ISOC wants Internet for everyone..that means YOU too! ISOC fully supports Real-Time Text ISOC and the local Chapters want to work together with IFHOH/EFHOH and all members to make the internet accessible for us all TOGETHER. Deaf and Hard of Hearing people can now be involved in the current and future development of the Internet! We can together make technology and internet work with your requirements and needs at first place About the Internet Society July 2008