Future Swiss and EU e-accessibility Visions for regulatory & policy communications aspects

1. ITU-T Workshop on“Telecommunications relay services for persons with disabilities”(Geneva, 25 November 2011) Future Swiss and EU e-accessibility Visions for regulatory & policy communications aspects Nuno Encarnação OFCOM(CH)

2. Swiss & EU regulatory and policy basics • EU directives on e-communications networks and services underline • user’s rights, incl. accessibility for all citizens • EU policy in e-inclusion and e-accessibility is well known and active in several fronts • A report on ensuring equivalence in access and choice for disabled end-users is published and • Its public consultation results are available • Swiss law is independent but evolves • in general taking in account EU regulatory and policy concepts developments

3. Swiss & EU regulatory and policy examples • ‘reach112’, • EU emergency services for all citizens • Monitoring ‘e-accessibility’ progress, • to monitor the status and progress, best practices, bench marking… • Standardization work and particularly mandates, like the one on • accessibility requirements for public procurement of ICT products and services

4. Swiss casegeneral aspects • The Swiss Disability Discrimination Act • establishes general principles applicable to all sectors, incl. public transport, telecom, TV and others • The Federal Bureau for Equality of People with Disabilities, FBED • may suggest improvements in particular sectors and facilitate measures, including financing of innovative projects to improve equality of persons with disabilities

5. Swiss casegeneral aspects, some measures • Swiss administration and those fulfilling public tasks of the Confederation (Post, Railways…) have tighter accessibility rules • Swiss administration publishes guidance • e.g. for barrier-free websites, mobility for disabled, useful contacts in Switzerland • The organization ’access for all’, co-financed by OFCOM, analyzes some 100 Swiss web sites accessibility • results will be published in November 2011

6. Swiss case telephony relay services [RS] • Free telephony relay services [RS] are in telecom Universal Service [US] (Telecom Act and legislation); they are financed from the overall income of this sector • Swisscom is the US licensed provider and • Procom is the organization to whom relay services are subcontracted • Service providers offer free access to RS

7. Swiss case relay services [RS], some statistics (1) • RS Clients are some 1’000 to 3’000 of the 7’000 estimated potential users • RS are available 24h/day and 7days/week • 35 operators work normally in 4h sessions • 80% of the calls are handled in 3…5sec, • but users may wait for an available operator • answering calls takes 15sec (average) • Operators transmit 80words/minute (average) • A trial video telephony is starting (2011)

8. Swiss case relay services [RS], some statistics (2) • RS usage decreased last decade [2009] • Due to increasing usage of sms, Internet video telephony and text exchange via Internet, • but new services and new interfaces are bringing clients back • Sources of information: • French Authorities organized an evaluation of the needs for telephony services of hearing impaired persons in different countries • Swiss Authorities studied the statistical characterization of social impact of the handicap

9. Swiss case telecom accessibility, other measures • Part of the telecom US are also • Accessible public payphones • Accessible directories • for blind and mobility impaired • SMS – relay services • for deaf and hard of hearing people

10. Swiss caseTV • Radio and Television Act (RTVA) requires relevant content providers to support • Captioning/ Subtitling • Sign language • Audio description • relevant telecom providers must distribute above services (RTVA requirement) • SRG/SSR ensures national public service • Also here the costs of accessibility are covered by all citizens using the services

11. Trends and visionsconvergence effects • Convergence(s) broadcast-telecom and fixed-mobile services create synergies and • Facilitate quicker and wider availability of new interesting devices, features and services • Broadcast functions may easily be useful to telephony services and vice versa • ‘Fixed network’ services are now easily available to citizens withmobility impairments • Investments on accessibility features can be shared by a wider range of usages… • …Convergence is pushing prices downwards

12. Trends and visionstotal communication for all • Total communication for all may mean • video-telephony associated to • captioning/ subtitling and • other metadata (e.g. sign language , audio description and other data) • It could imply the ‘Universal Service’ (ensured by law to all) to include… • synchronized transmission of audio/ voice, video, text and other data for • conversational/ interactive services like videotelephony, TV and Internet access

13. Trends and visionsfuture relay services [RS] • Video telephony could be included in the RS provided in the context of the universal service of electronic communications • If so, synergies will be created between policy/ regulation for content (TV, VoD) distribution and telephony services • … and captioning/ sub-titling for TV would be comparable to relay services for telephony…

14. Trends and visions future relay services evolution…

15. Trends and visions captioning and automatic translation • Captioning and automatic translation (incl. to the sign languages) is likely to have very positive impact • on content distribution/ broadcast • and on the future (video) telephony • Human intervention in RS would still be necessary for higher performing services • but such automated RS (probably lower performing, at least in the beginning) • would be possible 24h/ 24h, virtually for all, probably at lower costs

16. Trends and visionsmobility • Increased mobility and enhancements of ICT terminals • are already benefitting a very wide population • e.g. impaired people, incl. with mobility impairments • Mobile terminals may also in the future be a complement for a TV or other services, • building hybrid systems adding information, • e.g. blogs on the going TV program, audio description of the emission…

17. Trends and visionsadvantages of being inclusive • People with specific disabilities are often minorities • Including ageing and multicultural population (particularly people having mother languages different from local ones) may facilitate the development of new devices and services • A wider population base may justify some new developments, at least it facilitates business cases and may stimulate economical reasoning behind the social and legal justifications

18. Trends and visionsincreasing complexity • Above trends look promising for all but • We need a careful observation of the evolution to ensure all citizens their essential rights and prevent undue developments • Tracking e-accessibility environment evolution, particularly in ICT sector, • will be a hard task due to complexity, wideness of the scope and the evolution rate • This requires a permanent surveillance • standardization offers an excellent environment to study solutions to e-accessibility issues

19. Questions? Thank you for your attention nuno.encarnacao@bakom.admin.ch