Relay Services in Europe Technical perspectives November 2011

Communication for all  Why should deaf people worry about the kind phone they are using to call each other ?  Why should deaf people not be reacheable over the phone like hearing people?  Why is there a different communication system for hearing a deaf people in the first place? We want communication for all regardless of the terminal used, the provider used. True interoperability.

Plan 1. Lessons from the USA 2. The situation in Europe 3. The REACH 112 proposal 4. Next Gen Emergency Services 5. Comparison between models 5. New needs to accommodates

Internet Public Téléphone network Lessons from the USA Relay service Emergency services Audio call Video call (212) Deaf person (212) Deaf person (907) Deaf person (907) Deaf person (507) hearing person (212) hearing person Video call iTRS DB

Lessons from the USA Services covered – Person to person calls – Relay services: from and to PSTN – Access to emergency services (911) Technical features – H.323 protocol for interoperability between devices. – E.164 numbers registered one by one in an ENUM database for each user.

Lessons from the USA H.323: key for interoperability – Users may call any VRS provider Use of public IP of the caller as proof of identity Fraud handled at billing time – No gatekeeper / registrar Direct IP to IP call between devices End to end interoperability using H.323 protocol Text and video relay separated – Separated services not interoperable Access to Emergency: caller ID

The situation in Europe Several member states – Different sign languages (even regional ones) – Different accessibility legislations – Funding: ok for work accessibility, not in place for private persons except in Sweden. Relay Services – Sweden and Denmark: public service. – Privatly held organisations: France and England

The situation in Europe Users bound to one relay service – Closed garden approach. Few interconnections agreements. – Most used protocols: SIP and RTMP (Flash) – No uniform ENUM tree available. Emergency service access – Access using SMS (Uk, France, Sweden, Finland, Iceland) – Through textphones, but textphones fade away – Through the relay services in an unregulated way – Through REACH112 – until May 2012

Changing factors The Universal Service Directive Amended 2009 – 2002/22/EC Whereas (13), Articles 7, 23a, – Provide an equivalent of telephone service – Requires standards to be registered in the Official Journal – Deadline: May 2011 But – No standards registered yet in the Official Journal – No implementation guidline Hence the REACH 112 project – Feedback from technical people actually running relay services

The REACH 112 initiative Our interpretation of the directive – Provide one E.164 number per user – European wide person to person call – Number portability between providers – Technical standards for terminals as a baseline Total conversation – Efficient person to person calls – Merge text and sign relay – A standard for calling emergency services

The REACH 112 model

Convergences with NG112 NG112 work to define IP based standards – Discussion led by EENA member of REACH – Include total conversation support NOVES 3GPP IMS Emergency service access for more media than voice. Use cases TR include relay and Total Conversation use. IETF draft-ietf-ecrit-phonebcp approved Sep 2011, specifies IP access to emergency services including Total conversation. EMTEL DTS Total Conversation Access to Emergency Service. Ongoing work NENA i3 technical specification. US NG9-1-1 specification. Includes Total Conversation. Approved June 2011.

US / REACH112 comparison

New requirements Interoperability with other technologies – Skype, Gtalk,ooVoo and others – US / Europe interconnection – Rich Communication Suite and other pre-IMS Smartphone and tablets – User now wants mobility – Issue: Trafic shaping on mobile data network Going mainstream – Add feature (document sharing, camera control and remote measurment)

Our platform, our vision

REACH commandements 1. All shall be able to call all. 2. Call by number shall be supported. is 3. Call between two TC terminals can use any of the common media. 4. Total conversation (RFC 5194 ) shall be supported (three media or a subset).. 5. TC Relay service shall be available for interaction with voice only users. 6. Dialing 112 shall send the call to emergency service. 7. TC Call back from Emergency Services shall be possible 8. Provide Location in emergency calls. 9. Record emergency calls. 10. Use CAP for data transmission on emergency cases between PSAP stages

Questions?