This is an interesting one.

Since my last post, I have been trying the phone more and more, and find that I can’t always hear what people are saying really clearly. No matter what program on the implant I use, it’s not always clear. Some days I can hear, other days I can’t. Some people I can hear, other people I can’t. All very inconsistent.

But I have discovered something really cool.

The first ever captioned telephony trial is taking place in Australia right now, it started last week, and 100 people from around Australia were selected to take part after registering.

I am one of them, and I have taken part in the ‘Web Captel’ trial a couple of times in the last couple of days.

Using webcaptel is so much better than the old TTY phone system. You can hear and speak normally with the person on the other end, and read what they say as captions on your computer screen. Awesome.

Using webcaptel is so much better than the old TTY phone system. You can hear and speak normally with the person on the other end, and read what they say as captions on your computer screen. Awesome.

Basically, the way it works is you must have a computer in front of you connected to the internet, and a telephone, either mobile or landline.

I’ll tell you how I called my bank the other day:

I visted the website url they gave me, and logged in (you must have a username and password).

Then I simply typed in the phone number of the phone that was sitting next to me, and then the phone number of the bank I wanted to call.

Pressed enter…

Suddenly, my phone rang.

I picked it up – there was no one at the other end, but all of a sudden, the website page I had open popped up a text pane, and the relay officer in Brisbane started typing: “Calling number as requested… Ringing…”, and then, listening to my phone, I could hear the ringing sounds at the other end.

“Hello?” I said uncertainly.

“Hello, this is the bank, how can we help today?”

And the words of the other person suddenly came up on the screen in front of me as I listened to her – word for word.

I squealed with delight!

“I want help with my homeloan please! Eeeeeee!”

“Yes sure… Account number please, and your [brsghsghgh behjhjee and jsjkdksj].”

Suddenly I had missed something she said, so I waited half a second, and it soon appeared on my computer:

Yes sure, account number please, and your password and name as it appears on the account.

Dang! This thing, it worked! I gave her the answer, and then I just couldn’t contain myself:

“Miss, this is the coolest thing ever, did you know you are talking to a profoundly deaf person, and everything you are saying is appearing in front of me in text on my computer? It’s called WebCaptel and it is soooo cool!”

She said, “Um… what? webcaptel? I’m on your computer? uh… that’s .. ” then she laughed, “that’s great! … yes, wonderful! …”

And I could hear the smile in her voice. You can’t hear smiles with the normal Tele-Text Typewriter phones that the deaf use (the ones I normally use…) because you can’t hear anything, it’s only text you read, and it’s like a two-way radio.

So this new Web Captel service, I predict, will completely change the way deaf people use the telephone, and therefore communicate.

It’s also brilliant for practicing listening with my cochlear implant.

If you are interested in reading more about captioned telephony in Australia, visit the ACE website, or have a read of the ACE Web Captel user guide.

Today it feels good to be deaf in 2009.

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