PhoneAbility

5. How the Hearing Aid Industry is Meeting the Needs of its Customers

Soeren Larsen, Technical Co-ordinator, European Hearing Instrument Manufacturers Association (EHIMA)

I am going to put the focus back on the mobile phone and the hearing aid. I think that was the issue we were talking about. That is what we should discuss today.

First, what is EHIMA? It is the European Hearing Instrument Manufacturers Association. It's located in Brussels. It is not a big organisation, we are two people in there. We are representing this organisation that, again, is representing all major manufacturers of hearing instruments in Europe. We are talking about major European and major worldwide manufacturers. They are the six largest hearing aid manufacturers in the world that are represented, and we cover 90% of the worldwide market, so when we talk we are more or less the hearing aid manufacturing world. That is because there is one big manufacturer in the USA who also is a member of EHIMA, so we are really covering the market.

This is the issue we are going to talk about: that digital mobile phones are interfering with hearing aids. That is a situation that has to be changed. We cannot live with that, but it has been this way from the start, and there are several reasons for that.

From my own point of view, I can see that the mobile phone manufacturers really wanted to push GSM into the market as quickly as possible, creating a market for the European manufacturers, and did not want anything to stop that process, so they more or less ignored this problem, saying, "OK, we have to solve that maybe later," and then we can say, "OK, later; that is now."

The hearing aid industry has done, in our opinion, a lot to improve the situation. I have shown here that we have improved the immunity by 33dB. What does that mean? It means a lot, I can tell you. This improvement is measured according to international standards. This is an improvement of 6dB per year, which means that we reduce the immunity every year. Then everybody can say, "OK, that's fine. You just continue like that." In two, three, four, five years, there is no problem any more because you will then have solved the problem."

Fig. 1 The improvement in hearing aid immunity from 1997 to 2003

Unfortunately, it does not go like that. Fig 9 is a graph that shows the reduction in the level of interference from the mobile phone. It's called IRIL, Input Related Interference Level. It is a measurement of immunity from 1997 to 2003the immunity, and the lower the figures, the larger the immunity and the lower the interference. As you can see, there are two curves. They are more or less parallel, and it is very nice, but unfortunately, from 2002 until 2003, there is not this nice 6dB reduction. That is because all this is measured on a number of hearing aids from all manufacturers. Some of them are very good. Some of them are not very bad, but are rather bad. At a certain point, there is a spread from type of hearing aid to type of hearing aid, from manufacturer to manufacturer. This is the average value.

New instruments are obtaining these high immunities, so you can see the figure goes down, but there is a bottom here that, with present technology, cannot be surpassed. It would have been very nice if that was the case, but you can see that, since 1997, the situation has improved, which means there are a lot of tests going on in the world that are done on old instruments, and they show bad results here because things have really improved over the years.

Then we go back to this famous FCC ruling in the States. It has been said three times already, so this is maybe the fourth time, but there is a slight point here we have to discuss. The FCC has said that in two years` time, from 14 August 2003, they require that the mobile phone industry put on the market two handsets that are compatible. That is a fact, and that is something that the mobile phone industry has to do. They have to be U3 compatible. This is not something about loop systems or anything; it is the mobile phone that has to do this.

If you listen to the users in the US, they do not want accessories, they want direct communication with a mobile phone in the same way as everybody else; this is a fact, so that is what we have to do.

Then comes what they call the carrier; that's the telephone companies. 25% of their sales have to be the improved mobile phones. Then comes the telecoil situation. In three years` time, August 2006, they have to deliver mobile phones that you can use with a telecoil in an in-the-ear hearing aid. I personally am amazed that the mobile phone industry has not updated to that one, because that's the tough one.

The problem is not the 217hz buzz that comes with a GSM telephone. It is also the so-called base-band signal, which is the signal that comes from the electronic circuit in the mobile phone direct. The worst part is the light system, where you have the light switched on. It makes a lot of noise. Noise also comes from the display and from the push buttons. The mobile phone industry has said, "We will solve that, no problem." The phones will also send out the signal to a telecoil, but the mobile phone companies say, "Fine, we will solve that." This is their problem.

By 2008, 50% of all phones on the market have to follow these improved routes. As was said before, if this is going well, then the FCC holds its right to increase the 50% to 100%, so it could be that, from 2008, all mobile phones have to be what they call U3 compatible.

Nice, because this is what really helps us. We have to do something on the phone side together with what we have done on the hearing instrument. That will solve the problem. It means already, as I showed you before, that there are a number of mobile phones today that you can use together with your modern hearing aid. That is good news.

In the United States, the situation with the interference has to be solved by two government bodies. The FCC for the mobile phones side and the FDA to regulate the hearing instrument side. They have not done their homework yet. It does not mean that they have done nothing, but they have a view that they do not want to regulate. They want to put the responsibility on the manufacturers, and then they have to deal with it. That's more or less what they are considering today.

What can we do here, in the UK, in Europe or elsewhere?

Nothing? If we do not do anything, then we could say the Americans have solved the problem for us, because the mobile phone manufacturers are worldwide, so when they come out with at least two instruments each, in two years` time, those will also be available in Europe. We could say, "OK, don't do anything. That's a good thing. Do nothing."

Or, we could copy the situation. That means we could make a regulation in Europe, or we could make it in the UK. We, as the hearing aid manufacturers, of course, would prefer the same solution worldwide, because we do not want, and I don't think anybody else wants, that we should make special European solutions or special UK solutions. That is a difficult and cost-consuming thing.

We can also let the EU make this regulation. It was mentioned before that the INCOM group has put a proposal forward to the so-called COCOM committee, which is another organisation in the EU, and they are now taking their time and trying to figure out what they will do. Maybe nothing, but we could push them so that they will do it.

We from the hearing aid side definitely prefer that we will have a European, not a UK solution, but the European route takes time. They do not move very quickly. That is a matter of fact.

Discussion

WALLY MELLORS, ETSI: I get the impression that your speech has been rather optimistic, because I was reading only a couple of days ago that American manufacturers were asking for exemption for GSM telephones and a more reliable test method, and that they were saying this will only come with the third generation sets.

SOEREN LARSEN: The first part is that this ANSI C63-19 is a very good standard, but it has some problems in it; we in Europe rely on the IEC standard. We have asked the IEC standard measurement method to be mandatory in the ANSI standard, and it looks like we will have the IEC standard being implemented in the ANSI as well. ANSI has, in the typical American way, made a standard which they feel will solve their problem of how to measure, where I see a different approach. They want their standards to be linked to other standards.

They have to say, "When you measure electromagnetic field, you have to be able to say this is done according to...", and then there are a number of basic standards available. That's the problem. The hearing aid industry has not asked for exemption.

JACK SANDOVER, HEARING CONCERN: First of all, I would like to say that the hearing aid manufacturers have done very well. I have a digital hearing aid from Phonak, and this very old Motorola phone. I can use this on T with no problem at all, so, if they can do it, someone else can.

SOEREN LARSEN: The trick is that you have, on one side of the mobile phone, to emit enough electromagnetic energy for it to work as a mobile phone, but you don't want to put the antenna next to the hearing aid. This one is what we call an oyster version, so it moves the antenna away from the ear and downwards, further away.

Any centimetre that you add on to this distance halves the disturbance, so this is the solution that already exists. We can see that there are some others that are making so-called directional antennas, which means that the antenna does not emit energy towards your head and your hearing aid. It also helps because you don't boil your brain! That is a different solution.

There may be a problem with the present GSM standard. I think they have an idea that, in an emergency situation, you should be able to hold up your mobile phone and then somebody should be able to locate you. When you have the directional antenna, you will not emit signals towards the head, but when you have it on the ear, then the emission is already directional because that boils the brain, as it's not emitted out in the air.

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