Purple Communications, which has been providing voice and video relay services and other assistance to deaf and hard-of-hearing consumers for over a decade, is broadening its portfolio with its new ClearCaptions IP closed captioned telephone service. Captioning of real-time telephone conversations over the Internet is currently available from two other vendors, Sprint Relay and Hamilton Relay, both of whom rely on the WebCaptel service developed by UltraTec. Purple Communications (formerly GoAmerica), which will offer the service under its FCC charter as an approved provider of Telecommunications Relay Services (TRS), is creating some competition and increasing awareness of telephone captioning with its entirely new ClearCaptions service.
ClearCaptions is currently in its beta-test or trial phase but is accepting new users who can register at the ClearCaptions web site. IP captioned telephone service lets you view real-time captions of your phone conversations on your Internet-connected computer (or your Internet-connected handheld phone or tablet). All you have to do is notify your relay service provider that you are making a call, and the service provider monitors both ends of the conversation and, aided by voice-recognition software, provides you with a real-time transcript of the call. That way, if you’re like me and tend to miss anywhere from 20 to 80 percent of a phone conversation depending on the quality of the connection and any background noise that might be present, you get to fill in the blanks with the transcript.
Best of all, these web-enabled services are free, with subsidies provided by the government as part of the effort supported by the original Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to provide everyone with reasonable access to public facilities, including telecommunications, regardless of their disabilities. Hamilton Relay and Sprint Relay both also offer additional captioning services that require additional investment, including captioned telephones that display the captions directly on the phone’s LCD display so that you don’t need a computer.
The first neat thing you find with the ClearCaptions service is that you can register and log on through your Facebook account, which means you don’t have to remember a new user name or password. There is also a nice iPhone and iPad app that lets you get the captions right on your phone. I know Hamilton CapTel and Sprint CapTel both enable their captions on the iPhone, Blackberries and other smart phones. But I love the fact ClearCaptions has an iPad app because that’s the handheld device I use for email and other apps. (The iPhone isn’t hearing-aid compatible, and other smart phones including the Blackberry that meet basic hearing-aid compatibility requirements still don’t have the audio quality I need, so I use the simplest old LG clamshell Verizon offers because it offers the best voice quality, and I use the iPad for all my other hand-held computing and communications needs).
Beyond that I have yet to do a test of the Purple Communications service versus the WebCapTel service to see which provides better captions. As anyone accustomed to watching sports, the nightly news or any other live television programming can attest, quality of real-time captioning can vary tremendously, from near-perfect transcriptions to near unintelligible gobbledygook. So when I’m able to try out both side by side, I will write up a report.
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