1. SIP Support for Deaf and Speech Impaired Customers Gearhart, van Wijk, and Sinnreich

2. Why? Business and personal communications today is telephone oriented. Suppose no telephone communications for 24 hours: only options are fax and email. Deaf people, the same as hearing people, do need to communicate every day: business, personal, family, etc. Deaf people are entitled to the same access to easy communications that hearing people take for granted.

3. Why SIP? SIP provides ideal multimedia support: text, voice, video, and combinations of these. Examples: Deaf caller using Sign Language (video) to Hearing callee receiving audio interpretation [uses relay service]. Hearing caller using video and voice to Deaf callee receiving video with text interpretation (captioning) [uses relay service]. Deaf caller using Sign Language (video) to a Deaf callee receiving Sign Language (video) [no relay service necessary].

4. Selected Requirements Deaf user preferences: send/receive Sign Language; text with video; text with voice over; other combinations Automatic connection to relay service Support for relay center list and automatic forwarding in case of busy/no answer at relay center Relay centers can advertise the services available to Deaf customers: video interpreting, video and text message service (“answering machine”), etc.

5. Example: Deaf Caller to Hearing Callee Relay Service SIP Proxy Hearing CalleeDeaf Caller REGISTER 200 OK INVITE 183 Using relay, please wait INVITE 200 OK INVITE 200 OK ACK 200 OK ACK RTP (text) RTP (audio) RTP (text) User ID; password Contact: speech2text@relay.com RTP (audio)

6. Example: Hearing Caller to Deaf Callee Deaf Callee SIP Proxy Relay ServiceHearing Caller REGISTER 200 OK INVITE 183 Using relay, please wait INVITE 200 OK INVITE 200 OK ACK 200 OK ACK RTP (audio) RTP (text) RTP (audio)RTP (text) User ID; password Contact: speech2text@.relay.com

7. The Market 10% of the world’s population are Deaf or Hard-of- Hearing individuals. This untapped market is ready to participate in the 21st Century of communications. SIP and multi media telephony provide ideal vehicles for services directed to this market. Most products that will be created for this population also provide valuable services for the hearing market. 21st Century technology should mean fully accessible communication for everyone.