Scientific and technological reports

Bridging the Gap?
Access to telecommunciations for all people

3.5 Legislation, Regulation and Standardisation: their Contribution to Services and Equipment for Disabled and Elderly People

3.5.1 Introduction

In Europe much has been made over the last fifteen years of the role of European Union (EU) Directives to bring about improvements with regard to telecommunications for all citizens. These Directives contain such words as "universal service", "information for all" etc; it is therefore understandable that these words are taken to mean what is commonly understood by them. That is that "universal" and "all" means everyone, however as will be shown below in most cases disabled people are not included in that "all" and are treated as a subset of "all" which needs special consideration. This special consideration is however not mandated in most directives and is an option which may or may not be used depending on the views of the European Commission. This chapter will review these Directives, how regulation flows from them and the role of standardisation in meeting the requirements of legislation and regulation.

In order to deal with the complex chain of the many areas involved in telecommunications separate Directives relate to the network and the terminals that are used with them. From the consumers point of view their only concern is the ability to have end-to-end communication. This split between the network and terminals does not improve the opportunity for action to be taken to improve the ability of disabled people to communicate one to another. This split may become less relevant with the merging of telecommunications, broadcasting and multimedia communication which may present an opportunity for rethinking past approaches.

European Directives bring about legal obligations on EU governments to implement them. Many Directives have a set of Essential Requirements attached to them that set out the rules by which service suppliers and equipment manufacturers can show how they conform with the Directive. In telecommunications each country will have a government department that will take responsibility for negotiations on the directives and ensure their implementation. In addition each country will have a National Telecommunications Regulator who will regulate the market for telecommunications services. COST 219 bis has undertaken a survey of European Regulators to estimate the manner in which they have implemented Directives and introduced regulation for the benefit of disabled and elderly people. One way for service providers and equipment manufacturers to show that they meet the Essential Requirements of Directives is to use appropriate international and European standards. Consequently there is a long and very bureaucratic chain that has to be influenced if products and services are to become available to both disabled and elderly people.

A major problem for many countries is how facilities for disabled people are to be funded. As will be seen from the results of the COST 219 bis questionnaire different approaches are taken. However one method of funding is to have a Universal Service Fund, the factors involved in this will be discussed in the chapter.

Obviously other countries around the world are dealing with the same problems and as an example the legislative developments in Australia are described as well as major developments in the USA.

3.5.2 Legislative Development in Europe
Erkki Kemppainen

The development of telecommunications market over the last years has been interplay between the liberalisation of telecommunications sector on one hand and user demands and rights on the other hand. Some steps in this process are discussed in the following.

In 1987 the Commission of the European Communities published a Green Paper on the Development of the Common Market for Telecommunications Services and Equipment [CEC, COM(87)]. It included the following principles:

This document launched a long process in the liberalisation of the telecommunications market in Europe. As a legal framework for this process, several Directives have been enacted in complicated processes. Among other things, they concern telecommunications terminal equipment, services and networks.

Social impact has been discussed in many contexts and currently especially in the eEurope initiative. The other extremely important specific context is the universal service. The idea has been that simultaneously with the liberalisation process, there is uniform regulation of the universal service that safeguards minimum requirements in a competitive environment.

COST 219 and COST 219bis have also been active in this process. In addition to research, COST 219 has been active in awareness raising. But this needed to be combined with safeguarding the needs of people with disabilities and older people. The Belgian member of COST 219, Guy Cobut started with a working group to collect information in this area. The resulting Guy Cobut Report in 1994 [STEPHANIDIS, et al.] argues, among other things, that legislation is needed to guarantee the fulfilment of essential service requirements and the support of relevant standards.

In 1995 the European Commission published a Theme Paper on Universal Service Issues [EC, 1995]. According to this Paper, there is a general consensus in the European Union that ensuring the universal availability of high quality telecommunications services at an affordable price should be a fundamental objective of the EU telecommunications policy. However, the needs of those with disabilities and older people were not discussed explicitly in this paper. COST 219bis considers it essential for such needs to be explicitly included in the definition of universal service.

The Theme Paper was open for comments. COST 219 stressed in its response that the general philosophy of service designers should be "Design for All". COST 219 also presented a list of facilities that should be mandatory. These facilities were:

a) induction coupling on all telephones
b) amplification on pay telephones
c) a mandatory European communication protocol for text telephones
d) national text telephones relay service
e) public text telephones in selected sites
f) network facilities to provide text information in parallel with voiced information
g) notched cards for all payphones and on other cards
h) raised central indicators on keypads
i) specialist Directory Enquiry and service help facilities
j) standardised layout on keypads.

In 1996 the Commission published a Communication on Universal Service [EC, March 1996] which noted that "Certain groups of customers have special needs which universal service today either does not always meet or does not do at an affordable price. This concern has been highlighted by the European Parliament. Telecommunications offers such users a real lifeline with the rest of their community and the concept of universal service should ensure that such users benefit from an equivalent level of service at an affordable price to that offered to users without disabilities, taking into account the state of network development and market demand. Examples cited in the consultation included both the provision of services in the home (such as videophones or textphones for deaf people) and in public places. It could also include, where necessary, the provision of special services (such as relay services allowing textphone users to communicate with users without textphones), or specially adapted equipment...."

"It would be a matter of national social policy, rather than universal service funding mechanisms as to whether specific financial support was made available to ensure the affordability of such services for particular groups of users."

It was disappointing that Design for All thinking did not at that time get support in the Communication.

Another Green Paper pushed the development further, The Green Paper - Living and Working in the Information Society: People First [EC, July 1996]. An extract from the letter written by COST 219bis Co-ordinator, Jan Ekberg (November 1996) stated:

"The most important step forward at the level of principles would be the clear recognition that equality should not be understood only as equality between people living in different regions but also between different people, including people with disabilities and older people. In other words, equal right to communication should be recognised."

"However, at the European legislative level clear steps are needed. This could include broadening the scope of the Universal Service Obligation, accessibility requirements for telecommunications terminal equipment and further progress in standardisation. A Council Recommendation could support the progress to equal communications both at the European and at national levels"

The Directive on the application of open network provision (ONP) to voice telephony (95/62/EC) [Directive 95/62/EC] already stated that national regulatory authorities may draw up specific conditions to aid disabled users and people with special needs in their use of the voice telephony service.

But more was to come relating to universal service. The Directive on the application of open network provision (ONP) to voice telephony and on universal service for telecommunications in a competitive environment [Directive 98/10/EC] defines the universal service in Article 2 as "a defined minimum set of services of specified quality which is available to all users independent of their geographical location and, in the light of specific national conditions, at an affordable price".

Article 8 in this Directive concerns specific measures for disabled users and users with special social needs. It says that Member States shall, where appropriate, take specific measures to ensure equal access to and affordability of fixed public telephone services, including directory services for disabled users and users with special social needs. According to the Preamble, specific measures for disabled users could include, as appropriate, making available public text telephones or equivalent measures for deaf, hearing or speech impaired people, providing services such as directory enquiry services free of charge or equivalent measures for blind or partially sighted people, and providing itemised bills in alternative formats on request for blind or partially sighted people.

The other important new Directive is the Directive on radio equipment telecommunications terminal equipment and the mutual recognition of their conformity [Directive 99/5/EC]. This relates to essential requirements as defined in Article 3. In accordance with the procedure laid down in Article 15, the Commission may decide that apparatus within certain equipment classes or apparatus of particular types shall be so constructed that it supports certain features in order to facilitate its use by people with a disability.

Since the Guy Cobut Report of 1994, much knowledge and information about the technical possibilities of enhancing the lives of older people and people with disabilities has been amassed and disseminated. However, it needs to be used more actively by telecommunications companies. The assessment in 1994 that economic competition requires legislation as a guiding counterpoint seems to be justified. Liberalised markets needs new kind of rules.

Some progress has been made within standardisation. For example, the ITU-T V18 Standard sets out a protocol for text telephony. There is also work proceeding towards the concept of total conversation which includes text, voice and pictures. Notched cards and keypads have been standardised. But have not been implemented on a wide scale.

On the other hand, there needs to be much more done with regard to the availability or accessibility of services. Based on the COST 219 list of suggested mandatory facilities, there should be inductive coupling on all telephones, amplification on pay phones, national text telephone services, raised central indicators on keypads and specialist Directory Enquiry and service help facilities. Over the past few years, there has been progress in some countries or with regard to some services, but in other cases, services have decreased. However, in network facilities there has been strong development that can benefit areas such as video telephony.

Much more needs to be done to incorporate these requirements in legislation. The ONP Directive gives Member States legal powers to take specific measures in this field. These could be applied, for example, to the implementation of national text telephone services and specialist Directory Enquiry services. The Directive concerning terminal equipment empowers the Commission to define certain mandatory features for certain equipment. These mandates should be actively used. Research involving cost-benefit analysis would be a good basis for that kind of action.

In summer 2000 Commission made a proposal for a new package in telecommunications legislation. It includes five Directives and a Regulation. One of the proposed Directives concerns universal service (Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on universal service and user's rights relating to electronic communications networks and services) [EC, COM(2000) 392).

In this proposal the liberalisation of the telecommunications market is considered very important, but attention has now also been paid to users' rights. It is recognised that the liberalisation of telecommunications sector and increasing competition and choice for communication services go hand in hand with the parallel action to create a harmonised regulatory framework which secures the delivery of universal service.

The universal service obligations are defined in Chapter II of this proposed Directive. Among other obligations universal service includes special measures for disabled users and users with special needs. They are defined in Article 7 as follows:

1. Member States shall, where appropriate, take specific measures to ensure equivalent access to and affordability of publicly available telephone services, including access to emergency and directory services, for disabled users and users with special social needs.
2. Member States may take specific measures, in the light of national conditions, to ensure that disabled users and users with special needs can also take advantage of the choice of undertakings and service providers available to the majority of users.

In the preamble it is noted that:
Member States should take suitable measures in order to guarantee access to and affordability of all publicly available telephone services at a fixed location for disabled users and users with special social needs. Specific measures for disabled users could include, as appropriate, making available public text telephones or equivalent measures for deaf or speech impaired people, providing services such as directory enquiry services of equivalent measures free of charge for blind or partially sighted people, and providing itemised bills in alternative format on request for blind or partially sighted people. Specific measures may also need to be taken to enable disabled users and users with special needs to access emergency services (112) and to give them a similar possibility to choose between different operators or service providers as other consumers. The provider of universal service should not take measures to prevent users from benefiting fully from services offered by different operators or service providers, in combination with its own services offered as part of universal service.

The scope of universal service is important because it is related to its financing. Article 13 tells about the financing of universal service obligations. According to it, Member States may decide: (a) to introduce a mechanism to compensate that undertaking for the determined net costs from the general government budget, or (b) to share the net cost of universal obligations.

A Communication Towards a Barrier Free Europe for People with Disabilities [CEC, COM(2000) 284] given by the Commission in 2000 acknowledges that environmental barriers are a greater impediment to participation in society than functional limitations. Barrier removal through legislation, provision of accommodations, universal design and other means, has been identified as the key to equal opportunities for people with disabilities.
The Communication reviews some key EU policies that can contribute to the improvement of access for people with disabilities. It places a particular emphasis upon the achievement of a greater synergy between related issues in the fields of employment, education and vocational training, transport, the internal market, information society, new technologies and consumer policy.

Another important development is the eEurope initiative, which was launched by the European Commission in December 1999 with the objective to bring Europe on-line. In Lisbon in March 2000 the European Council invited the Council and the Commission to draw up a comprehensive eEurope Action Plan. The European Council endorsed the Action Plan in Feira on 19-20 June 2000 [CEUCEC, (2000)].

The comprehensive Action Plan includes also a title "participation for all in the knowledge-based economy". This indicates how disability policies have been streamlined with general policies also in the Action Plan. The Action Plan says that:

Summary

When looking at the development from the beginning of the liberalisation of the telecommunications market, there has been considerable progress at the level of policies and legislation. Legislation is however still only halfway legislation and there is a need for development and tackling the problems and risks experienced in practice. The slow process of legislation tends to frustrate, but the steps taken are important for further progress. A user perspective has been brought into telecommunications legislation and users with special needs have been recognised at certain points. For example, accessible directory services could become a good example to be applied in other services, too.

What is needed now is that that the Commission and Member States use the powers given in Directives in order to achieve a more accessible information society. At the same time policies need to be strengthened so that more actions can be specified towards this goal.

Needs may also vary in the course of technical development. That is why the most fundamental requirements should be about the equal right to communication and should not be tied to specific technologies.

3.5.3 Telecommunications Terminals Supply - A Universal Service Model
Tony Shipley

What is the Problem?

The need for accessible and affordable basic telecommunication services is widely recognised and is strongly supported by European Union Directives. It is also clearly identified as a policy objective for national regulators in the proposed new Directive on a common regulatory framework for the converging electronic communications networks and services. Addressing this need forms a significant objective for OFTEL - the UK telecommunications regulator - and a number of measures have been put in place towards that end. There is, however, a serious gap in the system. For very many disabled and elderly people, access to the telecommunications networks can only be obtained by means of a terminal which has the features that they require. If accessible terminals are not available and affordable, the objective remains out of reach.

People with disabilities - including those whose disabilities are consequent upon advancing age - are doubly disadvantaged by a regime that sees the market place as the driving force in the supply of terminals. Apparatus designed for a mass consumer market frequently lacks features that would make it accessible for disabled people. If their particular needs are then met only by niche market players, the inevitable consequences are restriction of choice and higher costs. The cost differential can be considerable. For example, terminals designed for real-time text messaging are likely to cost ten times as much as ordinary voice terminals, and more than twice as much as e-mail terminals of somewhat similar construction. The double disadvantage for disabled users lies in the difficulty of finding equipment suited to their specific requirements and then, when it can be found, of having to pay significantly higher prices for it.

Universal Service

The concept of universal service in telecommunications lies in using regulatory intervention to ensure provision of a set of basic services. If - and only if - market forces fail to deliver the defined set throughout the whole territory, national regulators are empowered and obliged to apply measures to direct the behaviour of the market players. They can, for example, require that some aspects of service are delivered regardless of location and at costs that will - for some subscribers - effectively be subsidised. However, this principle applies only to the provision of services; it has no validity in relation to the supply of goods. There is no mechanism in a free economy for requiring traders to manufacture or import goods of a specific kind. If the universal service approach is to be applied to the subject of accessible and affordable telecommunications terminals, it has to be addressed to the service providers. It cannot be applied directly to the manufacturers or importers of terminal equipment.

This conclusion is underlined by a consideration of the practical outcomes of the Single Market in Europe. 'Accessible' and 'affordable' are not absolute terms. Interpretation of these qualities will necessarily differ between Member States in the European Union. A Member State is not permitted to discriminate against service providers from outside its territory, but the services do not have to be identical throughout the whole Community.
Provided that it treats all applicants fairly and evenly, a Member State can require that the services provided do comply with its national laws and regulations. The Single Market in services recognises these national differences, which reflect different conditions and expectations, whereas the Market in goods is totally harmonised and national or local preferences are handled simply through market forces. Therefore, national considerations of accessibility and affordability in relation to terminal equipment can be applied only in the context of service provision, for there is no leeway for similar national intervention in the supply of goods.

A Model Solution

What follows is a model for discussion and debate. It seeks to address the problem set out in the first paragraph, using the mechanism of universal service. The key elements would be:

Part A: Obligation on Service Providers

Designated universal service providers at present have some obligations to ensure availability of certain types of accessible terminals. These obligations are very limited but the principle is a long-established one. The service providers are required to take steps to maintain supply of the defined terminal types, should the free market fail to offer them. There is no obligation to offer terminals at less than cost but such an obligation could be added, provided that there was then an opportunity to recoup any losses through a universal service fund. At present, universal service is confined to the fixed networks (although OFTEL has encouraged mobile operators to provide some elements of it under voluntary agreements). In future, it is expected that formal universal service obligations will be applied to mobile networks.

In the proposed model, designated universal service providers - fixed and mobile - would be required to ensure that terminals of specified types were available to, and affordable by, UK customers. The providers would be free to decide how to do this. They might opt for bulk purchase of terminals for supply through their own sales outlets, or they could contract with other traders to carry out the function. They would be guided by the management group on the levels of prices to be met by the purchasers, but the broad objective would be to keep the retail price of terminals with accessible features close to that of comparable, but less accessible, models. The differential would then be met by a subsidy to the provider from the universal service fund.

Part B: Cost Recovery from a Universal Service Fund

One principle of universal service is that any net cost to the designated provider in delivering the obligation may be recovered from a universal service fund. That fund is financed by means of a levy on all the service providers, which is of course tantamount to a hidden charge on all customers using their services.

For the purposes of this model the amount of the levy is a matter for discussion, but it should be related to the market size of each contributor, either by the number of retail customers or the volume of business. However, it is not identified or accounted for as a customer levy, but rather as a business overhead. The rationale is that all service providers in the sector benefit from the traffic resulting from additional users - the so-called 'network externality' - so all should contribute to the costs of bringing them in.

This leads to the question of whether providers who do not serve consumer markets should pay the levy, for they would not seem to benefit from the added business. If the link between costs and benefits is lost, the levy becomes in effect just a form of taxation and it is then highly questionable whether it should be applied at all at the level of a specific industry.

Part C: A Management System

There might be a temptation, given the availability of a significant source of funding, to apply it across a wide range of projects without any clear plan. There will be no shortage of deserving causes and much lobbying in support of each one. Without clear objectives and very careful management the scheme would soon fall into disarray. The primary responsibility of the management group - guided by an advisory committee and a consultation process - would be to prioritise calls on the resource and match them to income. It must be noted that a universal service fund is unlikely to be applied to the particular purpose of assured supply of accessible and affordable terminals alone. The process of prioritisation would have to take account of other areas of net unrecovered costs arising from the operation of universal service in electronic communications. This is perhaps the most difficult area of decision-making, namely the fair and transparent determination of which of many competing demands can be accommodated.

Since this proposed model relates to only one small - if important - potential aspect of universal service, its management would have to be dovetailed with that of the others. This might be achieved by giving the terminals management group a delegated budget, thereby moving the wider prioritisation to a higher level. Alternatively, it might be done by setting resource priorities within an overall management group, but then creating sub-groups to consider the more detailed sectoral objectives - of which terminals provision would be one. These alternatives are of course somewhat similar, but they serve to emphasise that no single special interest can be allowed to dominate decisions on resource allocation.

Decisions on the types of terminals to be offered under the proposed scheme will involve similar debate over resources. There will always be a dichotomy between emphasis on provision of expensive terminals for the few with very special needs, and the more general supply of much cheaper units for the many. These decisions are part and parcel of any resource management process and need no further elaboration, save to point out that the management group will not be insulated from such realities. Its decisions will have to be reached in a transparent and accountable manner and it will answer to the regulators and to all the interested parties in the diligent pursuit of its duties.

Part D: Regulation and Monitoring

Over all regulation of universal service is likely to remain in the hands of OFTEL or its successor in the converging electronic communication environment. OFTEL has so far persuaded designated universal service providers that there is no justification for a fund - although at least 4 other EU Member States have set up such funds or are soon about to. With the expected changes in authorisation and licensing, it seems unlikely that the UK can continue to avoid having its own fund and it would certainly be a pre-requisite for this proposed model. It would be for OFTEL to decide whether to manage the process in-house or to delegate it to an independent contractor. There are many possibilities, ranging from a separate agency to a partnership with a charitable body - perhaps on the lines of Motability.

Aside from the legal regulatory aspects, other interested parties in the process would expect to have their input recognised. These parties might include the universal service providers delivering the facility and the companies contributing to the levy, as well as representatives of the recipients (and potential recipients) of the service. The extent and manner of monitoring by each of these various interests would need to be determined at a very early stage - and each interest group would then have to decide how its input was to be effected.

Part E: The Problems of Intervention

Intervention in a free market inevitably causes problems. Where a system operates to offer certain types of terminal at subsidised prices, no supplier outside the system is likely to enter this market segment. This may result in the subsidised models acquiring an 'institutional' image, especially as there will be little commercial pressure to update them. Old designs with written-off development costs become increasingly cheap to make until the point is reached where their components can no longer be economically sourced. Although the subsidy associated with such products may have been decreasing, at that point a step increase in funding support will be needed - and therefore should have been allowed for in the planning process - in order to catch up with design evolution.

Another kind of problem may be encountered where the subsidised products are new and attractive. Terminals sold at less than cost on the UK market, for example, could be purchased by - or sold on to - citizens of other States where such equipment is either not available or is much more expensive. This would result in a net drain of resources from the UK's universal service fund to other nations not offering similar levels of service. This problem might be avoided by making the subsidised products available only on rental, but this is administratively more expensive than outright sale so part of the benefit of the scheme would be dissipated.

These and other adverse effects of market intervention can be minimised by moving as rapidly as possible to a stage where most mainstream products are accessible and affordable, as a result of the major manufacturers having adopted inclusive design (Design for All) principles. It should be part of the strategy of the management system to encourage manufacturers to move in this direction, or at least not to discourage them by artificially shaping the market. The proposed EU regulatory framework for electronic communications allows of the possibility of competitive tendering for the universal service functions. A form of tendering which favoured moves from subsidised provision (of specific types of terminal) to inclusive mainstream provision would seem to be in the best interests of all parties. However, these points will suffice to show that the function of the management group is both complex and critical, yet it needs to be cost-effective or the operation becomes self-defeating.

Conclusion

There are many possible variants on the model put forward and the objective in setting it out in some detail is to demonstrate the complexity of an apparently simple concept. Many inter-relationships would have to be taken into account if applying a universal service fund for so specific a purpose. That between the universal service providers and the equipment supply industry, and also that between the various groups who would be the beneficiaries of funded universal service, are perhaps the more crucial ones. Nevertheless, provided these various relationships are recognised, there seems to be no reason why a model on these lines should not be made to work.

This model would have to be backed by legislation, to apply this particular universal service principle, to introduce the levy, and to create the management group and the advisory body. However, all of these objects are within the broad scope of EU and UK telecommunications regulation and could potentially be brought into effect by Statutory Instruments rather than primary legislation. There are alternatives, the more obvious ones being the introduction of direct state subsidy for affordable and accessible terminals, and the use of legislation (as in the USA) aimed at equipment manufacturers calling for accessibility in their products. Neither of these possibilities should be ruled out for the future, although both would create conflicts with European law if applied at the national level at the present time. The universal service model is put forward as being the quickest, simplest and arguably the most effective means of making accessible and affordable communications terminals available to people with disabilities.

3.5.4 Legislation in Australia
Gunela Astbrink

Introduction

In Australia, the combination of consumer action and legislation has had a considerable effect on the provision of telecommunications products and services for people with disabilities. Both the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 and the Telecommunications Act 1997 have created a framework for building better access to and equity in telecommunications for people with disabilities. Consumers have played a vital role in testing the legislation.

The Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (DDA) and the Telecommunications Act 1997 are inextricably linked in a number of ways. Complaints of discrimination under the DDA influenced the insertion of particular clauses in the Telecommunications Act. The Telecommunications Act refers back to the DDA with reference to the supply of services to people with disabilities.

Disability Discrimination Act 1992

The impact of the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (DDA) was to be significant for improved access to telecommunications. The DDA is broad-based legislation with few references to telecommunications. Complaints of discrimination lodged with the Human Rights and Equal Commission are mediated and if not successful, legal decisions are handed down. Most notable was the Scott vs. Telstra case in 1995 where a deaf person stated that he was being discriminated against due to Telstra failing to supply a text telephone for him to make use of the telecommunications network. At the time, most residential telephone users used a telephone handset that was rented from Telstra as part of the line access fee. This was called the standard telephone service. However, text telephones were not available under the same rental scheme as a standard handset. In a landmark decision, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission found that Scott had been discriminated against, leading to Telstra, Australia's major carrier, initiating an expanded text telephone provision program [BOURK, M]. This has benefited deaf, hearing and speech impaired people. What is just as interesting is the increased usage of the network and subsequent income to the carriers once there were more users with text telephones.

It is preferable for progress to be made other than through discrimination cases. To guide this process, the Disability Discrimination Act encourages organisations, both government and non-government, to develop a Disability Action Plan. An Action Plan provides details on how an organisation will improve accessibility and includes an implementation plan and timeframe. An advantage for an organisation in having an Action Plan is that it decreases the likelihood that a discrimination case can be brought against it if it has clearly shown that plans are underway to implement particular accessibility strategies. Telstra was the first major corporation in Australia to lodge a Disability Action Plan with the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. In 2000, Telstra lodged its second Action Plan after evaluation of its first Plan had been completed [TELSTRA]. Just previously, Cable & Wireless Optus lodged its first Disability Action Plan [CABLE & WIRELESS OPTUS]. This means that Australia's two largest carriers have a set of guidelines in place on improving accessibility. However, there are many issues outstanding that still need specific consumer input and consultation. For example, consumers are concerned that the time frames in the implementation plan for the Disability Action Plans are not adhered to.

Telecommunications Act 1997

Just as significant as the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 has been the Telecommunications Act 1997 and the Telecommunications (Consumer Protection and Service Standards) Act 1999. This legislation is very specific and was enacted as a result of increasing liberalisation and competition in the telecommunications market. Of relevance are the sections on Universal Service Obligations, the National Relay Service and Industry Development Plans as well as the Telecommunications (Equipment for the Disabled) Regulations 1998.

It is important to note that, under the Universal Service Obligations, the supply of a standard telephone service does not necessarily limit itself to a voice-based service but includes customer equipment needed by people with disabilities. It refers to the Disability Discrimination Act as a compliance measure. The Scott vs Telstra case would have had a distinct influence on this inclusion in the Telecommunications Act.

The concept of universal service can be portrayed in many different ways. An influential report by the Consumers' Telecommunications Network stated that there are five elements to universal service:

1 universal geographical availability
2. universal accessibility
3. universal affordability
4. universal technological standard
5. universal telecommunications and participation in society [WILSON, I. & GOGGIN, G.].

This report recommended that universal service be recognised as a social and economic objective and that it go beyond the more traditional concept of universal service usually defined as merely geographical availability. This has only been achieved to a very limited degree.

The universal service provider has, until the end of 2000, been Telstra. However, under amendments to the legislation, regional universal service providers will operate in two pilot regions in Australia. Universal service providers are obliged to offer a disability equipment program and consult with consumers about the equipment to be supplied as specified by the Telecommunications (Equipment for the Disabled) Regulations 1998. Telstra has been providing disability equipment but, with a number of different carriers and the advent of regional universal service providers, changes could occur in the method of provision of equipment.

The National Relay Service for text telephone users is also outlined in the Act. This is a twenty-four hour service funded by the federal government and run by an independent organisation, the Australian Communication Exchange (ACE) but with carefully constructed performance measures. The government regulator, the Australian Communications Authority oversees the National Relay Service and conducts an annual Consumer Forum to ensure that ACE is delivering the service as required.

Many new carrier licenses have been granted over the past few years. Amongst the conditions for the granting of a license is the provision of an industry development plan under the Act. This specifically mentions the requirement for the reporting of a carrier's relationships in connection with the production and supply of equipment for use by people with disabilities and the reporting of research and development to address the needs of people with disabilities. There is much more that could be done in this area as research and development impacting on people with disabilities has been quite limited over many years.

The Telecommunications Act states that consumer representation may be funded by the federal government to ensure that consumers are informed about telecommunications developments and that consumer interests are clearly presented to government and industry. This has become particularly important with the deregulation of the market and the many changes occurring in the provision of products and services. Three organisations are currently funded to represent residential consumers (Consumers' Telecommunications Network), small business consumers (SETEL) and people with disabilities (TEDICORE). Smaller amounts of funding have also been allocated to peak disability organisations to cover costs of representation activities. This funding also includes research projects related to consumer use of telecommunications products and services.

The process of consumer consultation

Through the Australian legislative process, telecommunications companies, and in particular the universal service provider, are required to have formal avenues in place for consumer consultation. Telstra organises twice-yearly Disability Forums and has set up a consumer advisory group for its disability equipment program. The consumer advisory group is required under the universal service obligations of the Telecommunications Act. It discusses issues such as procedures for eligibility of the disability equipment program, usage statistics, negotiations under way for updated products and recommendations for new items. However, it is clearly an advisory group and so Telstra need not move ahead with recommendations for new items if it is considered financially inappropriate to do so.

Australia's second largest carrier, Cable & Wireless Optus has established a more broadly based Consumer Liaison Forum comprising consumer representatives from a wide variety of consumer organisations.

Again, on a broader basis, Telstra has its Consumer Consultative Council with representatives from a wide range of organisations representing ethnic communities, isolated children in remote regions of Australia, financial counsellors, older people, women, people with disabilities, Indigenous people, internet users, small business consumers and young people. The Council is co-chaired by a senior manager of Telstra and a consumer representative. There is a separate secretariat to support the work of Telstra and one to support the work of consumers in the development of policy through the Council.

Goggin & Newell state, with regard to consumer consultation, "As with any relationship, the nature of that benefit will always depend upon people willing to get together, acknowledge difference, and yet also to find a common ground." [GOGGIN, G., NEWELL, C.].

Conclusion

The impact of legislation has enabled more active consumer representation on vital issues which in turn has led to more regulatory steps taken to ensure that people with disabilities have improved opportunities of achieving better access to products and services.

People with disabilities have the capability of providing vital input into applications for products that are workable and useful. This is why it is important to include people with disabilities early on in the development of new products and services. But there needs to be a support infrastructure for consumers with disabilities to be involved. Consumers also need training in understanding the complexities of the changes in telecommunications as well as the telecommunications legislative and regulatory regime. These mechanisms require cooperation from government and industry to better support consumer initiatives.

However, a note of caution is needed as progress can be quickly reversed if there is an overreaching change in policy and attitude by government, regulators and industry. It is therefore vital to continue using legislation to help achieve better access to telecommunications in the future.

3.5.5 Recent Legislative Development in the USA
Chris Law, Gregg Vanderheiden

There have been three US laws passed in recent years all focused on helping to ensure that people who have disabilities will be able to continue to participate in different aspects of daily life and to use the products and services they encounter in their lives. This summary gives a quick and general overview of some of these laws.

ADA - Americans with Disabilities Act

The ADA can be characterised as a civil rights law. It basically says that people with disabilities have a right to be able to access and use any facilities and programs that are available to other members of the public. For example, if you have a store (shop) or other service that you offer to the public, then it should be accessible to and usable by people who have disabilities.

If you are a manufacturer, it does NOT say that you must produce accessible products. You do have to make your stores accessible, as well as any parts of your company that you allow the public to access and use. You also have to make your company accessible to any employees who have disabilities and you cannot refuse to hire someone with a disability because of their disability, etc. But, the ADA does not require anything particular of a company with regard to the accessibility of their products (though the ADA may require that your customers have accessible products if they use them in connection with their delivery of services to the public (e.g. if you make Automated Teller Machines)). Some aspects of this are limited to what is termed as "not an undue burden". The ADA Accessibility Guidelines [ADAAG] set forth specific guidelines for accessibility for buildings and some devices (e.g. telephones, Automated Teller Machines, Assistive Listening Systems etc.).

Section 255 of the Telecommunications Act

Unlike the ADA, this law specifically requires manufacturers of telecommunication products and service providers to make those products and services accessible to people with disabilities whenever it is "readily achievable" (i.e. it can be done with little effort or expense).

Section 255 [TAAG] states that: "MANUFACTURING- A manufacturer of telecommunications equipment or customer premises equipment shall ensure that the equipment is designed, developed, and fabricated to be accessible to and usable by individuals with disabilities, if readily achievable."; "TELECOMMUNICATIONS SERVICES- A provider of telecommunications service shall ensure that the service is accessible to and usable by individuals with disabilities, if readily achievable."; "COMPATIBILITY- Whenever the [above] requirements are not readily achievable, such a manufacturer or provider shall ensure that the equipment or service is compatible with existing peripheral devices or specialised customer premises equipment commonly used by individuals with disabilities to achieve access, if readily achievable".

Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act

Section 508 requires the US Government to purchase accessible Electronic and Information Technologies (E&IT) whenever it is not an "undue burden" to do so [Section 508]. Thus, there are marketing or sales incentives for industry to create accessible products if they want to sell them to the government, but there is no requirement that they do so (Section 508, therefore, does not specifically require manufacturers to do anything).

The Law covers all types of E&IT in the Federal sector and is, therefore, much broader than supplying assistive technologies for use by staff who have disabilities... it applies to all Federal agencies when they develop, procure, maintain, or use such technology for use by staff, or by the public who get information or services from the Federal Government. Federal agencies must ensure that this technology is accessible to employees and the public to the extent it does not pose an "undue burden" on the agency. The scope of Section 508 is limited to the Federal sector. It does not apply to the private sector, nor does Section 508 impose requirements on the recipients of Federal funds.

3.5.6 COST 219bis National Telecommunication Regulators Questionnaire
Mike Martin

As part of the fact finding role of COST 219 bis a questionnaire was sent to all European Union Telecommunication National Regulators and those countries participating in the COST 219 bis project, as identified from the UK OFTEL website www.oftel.gov.uk. The purpose of this questionnaire was to obtain an overview of the actions National Regulators in the European Union had taken on behalf of disabled and elderly people and how they had implemented the various Directives that related to such people. It was not intended to be an in depth review National Regulators activities nor to identify specific facilities or services, although some countries did give specific details.

Seventeen questionnaires were sent out by mail and the following countries responded:
Belgium, France, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland and United Kingdom. Below are the questions asked and the responses from these ten countries.

Q 1. As the National Regulatory Authority for telecommunications have you put in place or successfully recommended to your government that, by legislation and/or regulation, obligations shall be placed on telecommunication service providers to make specific provisions for disabled and older people?

Q.2 If you do not have any regulation to ensure the provision of facilities for disabled and elderly people please indicate if you are likely to implement regulation

All respondents except Finland responded YES to Q.1. Finland stated in Q.2 that they had no specific regulation and were not intending to introduce any regulation in addition to horizontal legislation and EU Directives.

Q 3. If you do have legislation and/or regulation please indicate below, or on an attached sheet, the type of requirement that you have provided for:

A wide range of responses resulted from this question, which are outlined below.

Belgium:
Annex B to Annex 1 to the Act of 21/03.1991 on the reform of certain public companies entitled "Tariffs offered by the Universal Service provider for social and humanitarian reasons". This provides for reduction in call charges for people over the age of 65 or who have a handicap of "at least 60%" subject to a range of conditions. A special telephone tariff is applicable to "certain hearing impaired persons and persons who have undergone a laryngectomy" again subject to conditions. A special telephone tariff is applicable to military persons blinded during the war.

France:
Decree no. 99-162 of March 8th 1999 modifying the articles R. 20-34 and R. 20-40 of the Post Office and Telecommunications Law. Article R. 20-34 of the CPT lays down two main measures in relation to social tariffs:

Greece:
P.D. 181/99 specifies that fixed line telephony services are provided under specific conditions, as are facilities for disabled people. The new telecommunication law 2867/2000 December 2000, requires that the Hellenic Telecommunications Organisation (OTE) is required to provide Universal Service until 31st December 2001.

Ireland:
Eircom has been designated as the Universal Service provider in the field of voice telephony and is bound by regulation 8 of the regulations to ensure affordability of services particularly for vulnerable groups of users such as the elderly and those with disabilities and special needs. The Equal Status Act 2000 prohibits discrimination against people suffering disabilities in employment, vocational training, advertising, collective agreements, provision of goods and services and other opportunities to which the general public have access.

Norway:
Telenor AS provides text telephony services in Norway

Portugal:
A range of Decree-Laws from 1995 including No. 123/97, 22nd May 1997, Technical rules concerning accessibility for disabled and elderly people.

Sweden:
Requirements to take into account the need for special services for disabled people are in place.

Switzerland:
Paragraph 15 of the Decree concerning Telecommunication Services requires that the Universal Service Provider shall be obliged to provide the three following services for disabled people:
"A transcription service for the hard-of-hearing, including emergency calls, for 24 hours a day at the tariff of the cheapest tariff zone;
An access, free of charge for blind persons, to subscribers' entries in the directories of every provider in Switzerland which offers transmission of speech in real time, in the form of an information service in the three official languages;
A free of charge switching service for the blind".

United Kingdom
The Telecommunications (Services for Disabled Persons) Regulations 2000 SI 2000 No.2410.

Q 4. In your country do you have horizontal legislation e.g. disability discrimination act etc covering the provision of services and/or equipment for disabled people?

Four countries, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland replied that they did not have horizontal legislation. In Belgium the requirement is not in the Telecommunications Act and responsibility is handed over to the Communities; in Flanders to the Flemish Fund for the social integration of Disabled Persons and in Walloon to the Agence Wallone pour l'intégration des personnes handicapées (AWIPH).

France:
The rights of disabled people were set out in France by the orientation law of the 30th of June 1975 in favour of disabled people. This defines the overall judicial framework for the protection of disabled people, the main aim of which is their professional integration in the workplace. It can also be noted that article L. 122-45 of the Employment Law, in a more general way, protects disabled people against any discrimination in the workplace.

Finland:
An Act on services for disabled people.

Greece:
Parliament Acts.

Ireland:
In Ireland the Equal Status Act provides legislation against discrimination for disabled people.

Portugal:
Decree-Law N0. 123/97 22nd May 1997 that establishes the technical rules concerning accessibility for disabled and elderly people and includes telecommunications.

United Kingdom:
The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 which is intended to protect disabled people in the areas of: employment; access to goods, facilities and services and; the management, buying or renting of land or property.

Q 5. Does this horizontal legislation then remove the need for specific telecommunications regulation to implement Article 8 of Directive 98/10/EEC, if that applies in your country:

Finland was the only country to answer YES to this question stating that horizontal legislation and the Telecommunications Market Act together removes the need for specific regulation. Ireland has both telecommunication regulation and horizontal regulation.

Q 6. If you have answered YES to Question 1 how are these provisions to be paid for. Please tick the appropriate box below. If more than one mode of payment is to be used please tick the relevant boxes:
a) By direct state funding
b) By the telecoms companies, e.g. by internal cross-subsidy
c) By a Universal Service Fund, or other industry levy
d) By part State subsidy
e) By funding from voluntary sources e.g. lotteries, voluntary societies etc
f) Directly by consumers
g) By other means, please specify .............................................

Table 3.9 Response to question 6

(a) Belgium funds provisions through the telecom companies and is setting up a Universal Service Fund.
(b) Greece is planning a Universal Service Fund for implementation.
(c) Switzerland currently requires Swisscom to fund universal service until the end of 2001. A new funding arrangement will then be put in place.
(d) In France Article L.35-3 II, paragraph 2 of the Post Office and Telecommunications Law stipulates that any operator offering specific social tariffs receives compensation of the net cost of this offer, paid out of the Universal Service Fund. In practice, the costs for this category of operators are deducted from their contribution to this Universal Service Fund. The overall cost has reached a plateau of about 0.8% of the turnover of telephone services of which 0.15% relates to the taking over of telephone debts.

Q7. Do you regulate that consumers with disabilities, who may need specific equipment and/or may be slower to communicate, shall use the telecommunication services at the same cost as everyone else?

Table 3.10 Response to question 7

(a) Greece 900 free units per month offered to blind people by the Universal Service Provider (OTE) for access to fixed line telephony.
(b) Sweden NO, but consumers are compensated by other means
(c) United Kingdom YES only in respect of textphone users.
(d) France covers this by legislation under Decree no. 99-162 of the 8th March 1999 and not by regulation.

Q8. Have you made any representation to the European Commission with regard to the RTTE Directive for additional powers to extend the Essential Requirements of that Directive to cover the needs of disabled and elderly people under Article 3.3(f)?

No country had made any representation to the European Commission

Q9. Do you have a formal mechanism to consult with disabled people directly or with organisations representing them?
If YES please indicate how this is done:
a) Through your own National Regulators organisation
b) Through the telecommunication service providers
c) Through other means, please specify ..........................................

Finland, Sweden Switzerland and the United Kingdom have formal mechanisms. Norway provides subsidies for the acquisition of terminal equipment and the use of services through the Ministry of Social Affairs. Belgium, France, Greece, Ireland and Portugal do not.

Q10. Do you have within your regulatory organisation a specific department or group concerned with the needs of disabled and elderly people?

Sweden replied YES. The UK through OFTEL reported that it is structured around projects and programmes so there are no departments that target a particular area of work, however they do have a system of advisory committee one of which is the advisory committee to the Director General of OFTEL on matters relating to Disabled and Elderly people (DIEL). In France the National Consultative Council for Disabled People created by the Decree No. 84-203 of the 22nd March 1984 gives opinions to the Minister concerned on any project or programme concerning disabled people. This authority has to date not received any request relating to access to telecommunications for disabled people. All other countries replied NO

Summary

As might be expected all Regulators have implemented some form of regulation or obligation on telecom service providers to implement provisions for disabled and elderly people. However it can be see from the responses to Q.3 that there is no consistent approach to this and very clearly what you will receive in the way of service will depend on the country you live in.

Q.4 and 5 attempted to determine if horizontal legislation i.e. broad-based legislation such as a Disability Discrimination Act, covering a wide range of general issues was being used to ensure the provision of services. In general at the present time this is not the approach being used, however it may be that in the future this will be seen to be a more powerful means of ensuring the availability of services.

The question of funding services for disabled and elderly people, Q6, is probably the most contentious issue for telecom service providers. Three approaches to this can be seen which are either the state funds the services, two countries, the telecom companies do directly, six countries, or there is a Universal Service Fund which all operators contribute to, five countries with a combination of all of these. The level of funding required for services has been indicated by France who declare that the cost is about 0.8% of the turnover of telephone services, of this 0.15% relates to telephone debts. This is a clear indication that the cost of providing services for disabled people is manageable within the operating costs of telecom companies.

Q7. Again indicated no consistency of response with five countries requiring disabled people to fund the additional costs required to use services themselves. This clearly makes the concept of Universal Service less than universal.

Q.8 relates to the fact that the RTTE Directive provides for submissions to be made to the Commission to implement changes to the Essential Requirements of that Directive to provide for facilities on terminals for the benefit of disabled people. The fact that no Regulator made any such request either indicates that disabled people have all the facilities they want or they are unaware of the needs of disabled people. The responses from Q9 and Q10 would appear to indicate that there may be a considerable lack of awareness of the needs of disabled people in National Regulators organisations and very few resources put to determining what is required.

A general conclusion from the survey is that there is little consistency across Europe and no harmonisation of strategy or implementation of the very fine sounding phrases such as "Universal service". Clearly the European Commission's concepts of Universal Service are not being extended fully, or in any consistent manner across Europe and more work is required to look at the details of the reasons why and how the situation can be improved. After fifteen years of the COST 219 project it is a disappointing note to end the project on.

3.5.7 Standards and Accessibility to ICT by All
Knut Nordby

Introduction

The liberalisation, deregulation and privatisation of the telecom industry in Europe have had a detrimental effect on the industry's attitude towards standardisation. In pre-privatisation days, the telecom industry was largely positive to standardisation and co-operation (e.g. in CEPT - Conférence des Administrations Européens des Postes et Telecommunications), where openness and the will to achieve good workable solutions were prevailing.

With liberalisation, privatisation and competition, this will to standardise has largely vanished and has been replaced by the overruling commitment to satisfy the needs of the shareholders rather than the needs of the customers. Standardisation work is regarded as too costly to justify spending the necessary resources, and the only reason for participating by some larger players in the field is to stop any standards that run counter to their interests.

In the last few years we have seen an incredible development in ICT (Telecommunication and Information Technology) and the convergence of services and networks. At the same time there has been a significant increase in older citizens, people who not only live longer, are in better health and have more spending money than before, but who also wish to take part in a society that makes increasing demands on mastering new technologies.

Despite determined efforts in ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute) and in ITU-T (International Telecommunication Union - Telecommunication Standards), standardisation of telecom services and equipment for older people and for people with disabilities has not come very far during the last 15 years. And still worse, the few standards that have been made are largely ignored by the telecom industry.

In this hostile environment standardisation in general and standardisation for older or disabled people in particular has been the victim. Nonetheless, some standards have been achieved in this field, and below is an overview of the standardisation work in this area, particularly in Europe.

What is a Standard?

A standard is an agreement by the industry to make a product or to run a service in a specified (i.e. standardised) way. There are two basic forms of standards:

Most standards are industry standards, and most standards are voluntary, i.e. they are used only at the discretion of the manufacturers and service providers. However, if a standard is specified in a law or regulation it becomes mandatory.

Standards can be open or closed. Open standards, usually formal standards, are open for all to use, while closed standards are usually proprietary (e.g. Microsoft Windows(tm)) and are not freely accessible by other members of the industry.

However the use of standards to show conformity with EU Directives is not mandatory, manufacturers may use their own methods of showing compliance. It is however taken that if a product meets the requirements of a relevant standard it is said to comply with the relevant directive.

Three levels of Standards

There are three levels of standards and standards bodies, mapping onto each other according to the field of standardisation:

National: All countries in Europe have national standards organisations that are responsible for national standards; e.g. DIN (Deutsche Industrie Normung), BSI (British Standards Institution), NS (Norsk Standard), etc. Sometimes national standards organisations are split according to the field of standardisation, e.g. general standards or electro-technical standards.

Regional: In Europe there are three main standards organisations, each dealing with a separate field of standardisation:

Other regions of the world (e.g. North America, Australia, the Far East, etc.) have similar bodies dealing with equivalent regional standardisation.

Global: There are three global standards organisations, one for each field of standardisation:

Another section of ITU is ITU-R, which allocates radio frequencies globally. ITU is a United Nations organisation.

Why we need standards

Standards are necessary to ensure conformity of equipment and services, i.e. that they conform to some minimum agreed level of function or quality.

Standards are essential to ensure proper inter-working of equipment and services from different manufacturers and service providers.

Standards are important to ensure good usability and accessibility to equipment and services from different providers by imposing some minimum level of man-machine user interface.

Standards are valuable to ensure high transfer of learning between products from different providers; i.e. performing similar tasks in similar ways across products from different producers.

How standards are made

The making of a standard is usually voluntary. Both formal and industry standards are usually agreed by consensus. Industry standards more or less just happen, as when a particular product comes to dominate the market or when some manufacturers come together and agree certain characteristics of a product, it de facto becomes the product standard.

A new formal standard is normally first drafted by a technical committee or by a special work group. After being circulated for comments, the standard is then approved either by consensus and/or by a specified member voting process where the members of the standards body each have a vote. (In ETSI this includes members from the industry as well as from national telecom regulators and user organisations.)

After being adopted, the standards are published by the standards bodies and sold to the industry and the revenue is used to pay for the standardisation work. In ETSI standards are free since the membership fees are used to pay for the standardisation work.

Current trends in European standardisation

There are four significant new trends in current European standardisation, and these trends are rapidly changing the traditional standardisation arena; the four trends are:

European co-ordination

It is the expressed wish of the CEC (Commission of the European Communities) to co-ordinate all European ICT standardisation in CEN, CENELEC and ETSI to avoid replication of work (and waste of resources) and to have harmonised standards.

To achieve its goals, the CEC has set up various activities and enterprises such as the eEurope Action Plan, the ICTSB (ICT Standards Board), the CEN/ISSS (CEN Information Society Standardisation System, a joint body of CEN, CENELEC and ETSI) and various JTCs (Joint Technical Committees).

User participation

An important trend in European standardisation is for user organisations to be involved more actively in standardisation work. In ETSI a special User Group has been established to advance the users' requirements in standardisation work within ETSI.

Also ANEC (the European Association for the Co-ordination of Consumer Requirements in Standardisation) is deeply involved in advancing user needs in European standardisation.

Fora and consortia

During the last years there has been a proliferation of fora and consortia with no formal mandate for creating de jure standards: e.g. 3G.IP (3rd Generation Internet Protocols), ATM Forum (Asynchronous Transfer Mode), DAVIC (Digital Audio-Visual Council) IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force), MPEG (Motion Picture Experts Group), UMTS Forum (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System), WAP Forum (Wireless Applications Protocols), W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) etc. These fora and consortia, basically, create industry standards or provide pre-standardisation material for the formal standards organisations.

Global ICT standards

There is now an increasing realisation that new ICT standards, e.g. DECT (Digital European Cordless Telephone), UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System), WAP (Wireless Applications Protocols), etc., must be global rather than regional or national. ISO, IEC and ITU are global standards bodies that eventually will become more important than regional bodies.

In its new Study Period, ITU-T, Study Group 2 now has a new Question 4 (SG 4/2) 'Human Factors' that will produce global ITU Recommendation in the area of telecommunications for older and disabled people. Today, these are often based directly on standards produced by ETSI TC HF (Technical Committee Human Factors).

The society

More and more countries in Europe are now planning to introduce various on-line e-services, such as e-mail, e-banking, e-commerce, e-medicine, e-education, e-community services, even e-tax-return claims and e-voting, as the only way to communicate with its citizens. This will make enormous demands on all citizens, including older people, people with little education, disabled people, linguistic and ethnic minority groups, people of low income, people with learning and reading disorders, etc. There is a significant lack of standards even for ordinary users today, and no agreed standards to take care of the needs of the many special groups. In the future, when all communication with the authorities in a country must be made via a computer, a TV set-top box or some form of Internet smart-phone or screen-phone, we will have a huge problem with people not being able to cope with daily activities because of the technology barriers. In Europe the CEC is planning introduction of electronic working - the eEurope Action Plan.

Figure 3-12 Overview of who is involved in the standardisation process

It appears that over-eager politicians in many countries are completely unaware of the fact that there are no suitable systems available yet that can be used by all people. Design for All is a nice slogan, but until the proper standards can be created, it will continue to be only a slogan with no substance to it. Although politicians and authorities are keen to introduce all these new e-services as soon as possible in the hope of obtaining substantial savings and more efficient services, they are not prepared to grant the required funding and resources to make all these e-services fully accessible to all citizens.

If good practices and standards are not developed, the introduction of such e-societies will create enormous social problems, e.g. older people who may starve because they cannot get their pensions from the e-banks or order their food from the e-shops, or vote for more understanding politicians through the e-voting system. (Many of us remember well the problems in Florida at the 2000 American presidential election, and that was just due to simple old-tech.)

What is ETSI?

ETSI (the European Telecommunications Standards Institute) was established in 1988 to make telecom standards for the liberalised market of the EC (European Communities) and EFTA (the European Free Trade Area). ETSI has 660 full members from 35 European countries that break down as shown in figure (3-13). In addition ETSI has 55 observers from 18 countries and 174 associate members from 19 countries. United Kingdom (171), Germany (104) and France (79) have most members, while Estonia, Lithuania, Malta and Ukraine only have one member each. Anyone can become a member of ETSI by paying a fee according to size.

ETSI is presently (June 2001) organised in 14 Technical Committees (TCs) and 8 ETSI Projects (EPs), each dealing with a specific aspect of telecom standardisation. For detailed information on these TCs and EPs please consult the ETSI website http://www.etsi.org.

Figure. 3-13. Breakdown of ETSI membership by member type

What are Human Factors?

Human Factors are the scientific application of knowledge about the capabilities and limitations of people, with the aim to make products, services and environments safer, more efficient and simpler to use. Application of good Human Factors practice is a key factor for the commercial success of new ICT products and services in a fiercely competitive market.

People - not Technology

ETSI TC HF produces European Norms, ETSI Standards, Guidelines and Technical Reports that set the criteria necessary for the widest possible accessibility of telecommunications products and services. TC HF has a special mandate to ensure that ETSI takes care of the needs of all users of telecommunications in their standards, including those who are older or disabled.

TC HF thus deals with the needs of the end-users of telecommunications products and services rather than with technology. It is important to specify performance of equipment and services and the user interface rather than the technology (e.g. to specify minimum font size, contrast and font type that will ensure good legibility instead of specifying what technology to achieve this (CRT, LCD, or other forms of displays). It should be irrelevant to the user how the display of text is achieved as long as it is easy to read. In addition to engineers, TC HF has many members who are trained in the social sciences.

Work in all ETSI groups is voluntary. The TC HF Work Programme currently has 24 ongoing Work Items. Each Work Item is managed by a Rapporteur who reports directly to the TC HF Plenary. The TC HF Plenary meets three times a year. TC HF is expecting to approve five deliverables in 2001.

Work that does not receive any voluntary effort or that has been mandated by the CEC can be done in an STF (Specialist Task Force). TC HF currently manages five STFs, 100% funded from CEC/EFTA under the eEurope Action Plan. An STF is a group of experts hired by ETSI to work on a specified task.

There are a number of standards (both from ETSI, ITU-T and ISO/IEC that pertain to usability for disabled and older people, and an annotated list is found in ETSI DSR/HF-00019 [ETSI].

What standardisation can do

It is beyond doubt that the introduction of advanced technologies can be a much greater impediment to participation in society for many individuals than the disabilities or age related impairments as such. People with mild impairments who are able to cope with traditional low-tech solutions can often be 'disabled' by having to cope with new high-tech solutions - technologies that were meant to make the work simpler and more efficient. The only long-term solution for achieving full accessibility for all to new e-services and ICT terminals is to adopt design for all legislation. Unquestionably, this has been amply demonstrated by US legislation in this field (e.g. Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, Section 225 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, and the new Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (on Federal IT procurement) that came into effect June 21, 2001).

However, in addition to any pan-European legislation, e.g. EU Directives or similar national laws across Europe, there will be a need for appropriate standards to ensure conformity of services, inter-working of devices and services and last, but not least, standards for usability to remove obstacles to accessibility. It is the task of the European regional standards bodies (i.e. CEN, CENELEC and ETSI) to produce required standards, both to support regional legislation, but also to pass the standards on to global standards bodies (ISO, IEC and ITU) to develop global standards/recommendations.

Work is now in progress in the European regional standards bodies (CEN, CENELEC and ETSI) to adopt and publish the IEC/ISO Guide 71 [ISO/IEC], a set of general usability guidelines originally developed by ISO/IEC, to ensure inclusion of all when making standards for the new technologies (see Guide 71, 2001). Adopting the Guide 71 is certainly a step in the right direction, but if it is not made mandatory in a Directive or pan European legislation, it may not have much effect when it is left to the discretion of the industry whether to follow Guide 71 or not.

3.5.8 Conclusions

Modern ICT technologies (the eSocieties) often create more barriers for older and disabled people to participate on equal terms in normal societal life than helping these people. Generally, the ICT industry (i.e. manufacturers, service providers and network operators) has been extremely uncooperative in adopting equipment and services to the needs of older people or people with disabilities. There is no reason that the ICT industry will suddenly do this on its own accord. A number of standards have been created to make ICT equipment and services more accessible to people with various impairments, but these standards are largely ignored by the ICT industry since they are not mandatory.

There are only two actual options open to make the ICT industry wake up and take into account the needs of people with impairments: legislation and government procurement, both according to appropriate standards to make services and terminals fully accessible to these groups. In both cases there is a need for standards, both for legislation (and regulations) and/or to define the terms in calls for tenders for procurement. Standardisation often involves a great deal of detailed technical work (even in usability standards) that cannot be expected to be dealt with by the legislators or in calls for tenders. Thus being able to quote relevant standards will significantly aid the legislators and procurement agencies, see Nordby, 2001, [NORDBY, K].

Thus, even if standards are for the most part ignored by the ICT industry today, the role of standards may change significantly in the future as a result of new legislation or the use of the procurement tool.

3.5.9 What of the Future?
Mike Martin

From the contributions above, in Europe, an impression is given of a bureaucracy that has prided itself on taking note of the needs of disabled people and providing the legislative and regulatory means to implement services and equipment for their benefit. The reality of the situation may be somewhat different! In Australia there appears to have been more action in response to somewhat less legislation and regulation. In the USA there has been effective legislation that is broad brush and has considerable impact.

The question that must be addressed is how are matters to improve in the future. In order to answer this question there are a number of supplementary questions that have to be answered first in order to secure the knowledge as to how to proceed e.g.

a) what evidence is there that present legislation is adequate,
b) are the real needs of disabled people known in sufficient detail to implement legislation,
c) is horizontal or vertical legislation the best way forward,
d) are National Telecommunication Regulators sufficiently interested or in touch with the problems of disabled people to be effective in making change,
e) can the problems be solved by "market forces" or is it necessary to have legislation and regulation to resolve the problems,
f) are the "markets" there and if they are how can they be developed,
g) is the telecommunication industry aware of and willing to invest in the disability "market",
h) how are services and equipment going to be paid for and by whom,
i) are the voluntary organisations sufficiently knowledgeable about current and future technology and do they have the interest and resources to actively pursue the implementation of services and equipment
j) does Europe or any country have a stated strategy as to how to deal with the needs of disabled people,
k) are peoples attitudes in both the voluntary sector and industry sufficiently pliable to achieve compromise on issues.

The above questions, and others, have to be answered in order to provide a coherent strategy for dealing with the problem. While individual questions may be addressed, it is necessary to develop a coherent view of the future by providing answers to all the major questions if any sustainable development of telecommunications equipment and services is going to be undertaken in the future.

Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose
Lyndon B. Johnson, address to the nation, Nov. 28, 1963

3.5.10 References

ADAAG (1991). The Americans with Disabilities Act Accessibility Guidelines, Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board. http://www.access-board.gov/adaag/html/adaag.htm

BOURK, M. (2001). Universal Service? Telecommunications Policy and People with Disabilities. 1st books: Bloomington.

CABLE & WIRELESS OPTUS (1999). Disability Action Plan: Achieving access for all. Cable & Wireless Optus: Melbourne.
CEC. Commission of the European Communities: Towards a Dynamic European Economy. Green Paper on the Development of the Common Market for Telecommunications Services and Equipment. COM(87) 290 final.

CEC, COM(2000) 284 final. Commission of the European Communities: Towards a Barrier Free Europe for People with Disabilities. Communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions. Brussels, 12.05.2000.

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