People with hearing impairment and speech disorders will no longer have to rely on an interpreter to accompany them to communicate effectively, as they will now be able to use the Telecommunications Relay Service (TRS) provided by the Thai Telecommunications Relay Service (TTRS).
The TRS kiosks will be equipped with signage displays and webcam-ready, plus provide easy use and access through touch screens.
Currently, the only service available for people with hearing impairment to communicate with people in other locations is the Short Messaging Service, or SMS. However, the cost to use this service is too expensive for most of them. Also, many groups of deaf or hard-of-hearing people have complex grammars of their own, which means the grammar they use is not always identical with standard grammar, making it quite difficult for other people to understand them.
TRS is a telephone service that allows deaf, hard-of-hearing and speech disabled people to place calls to standard telephone users via a keyboard or assistive device.
Through collaborative support by the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) and the National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre (Nectec), the TRS service is now on its final testing phase and will be officially introduced at the 5th International Conference on Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology (i-CREATe 2011).
Wiriya Namsiripongpan, president of the Universal Foundation for People with Disabilities (UFPD).
The TRS service uses operators, known as Communications Assistants (CAs), to facilitate telephone calls between people with hearing and speech disabilities and other individuals, and can be initiated by either party. If a person wishes to initiate a TRS call, he or she will have to use a text input device to call the TRS relay centre and then give the CA the number of the party he or she wants to communicate with. The CA, in turn, will place an outbound traditional voice call to that particular party. Basically, the CA serves as a link for TRS calls, relaying the text of the initial caller in voice to the other party, as well as converting to text what the receiving party voices back to the caller.
TTRS, in collaboration with the Universal Foundation for People with Disabilities (UFPD), will initially set up around 30 service call kiosks at major locations, such as government places, hospitals, police stations, and department stores in Bangkok and the surrounding suburbs, according to Wiriya Namsiripongpan, president of UFPD.
So far, some 300 users who are hearing impaired or speech disabled have been trained to use the TRS, and nine interpreters working as CAs will take turns in operating the calls.
Wiriya noted that some of the locations, such as Siriraj Hospital, will offer the TRS without having to set up a service call kiosk as they already have computers and webcams. "Patients who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can use the hospital's computers that are reserved for TRS calls and connect to one of our CAs via http://www.trs.or.th," he said.
Wiriya also noted that once the 3G network becomes available and is fully functional, the company could develop the software to run on the iPhone and iPad, and the TRS would be available to users throughout the country without having to set up so many kiosks.
"The deaf will then have the iPhone or iPad as their interpreter. Seeing the doctor, for example, would take much less time than it has in the past," the president said, who added that the tele-sign language could further develop into a tele-rehabilitation service in the future. By using the technology supporting the new service, the rehabilitation service could be more widespread and done at a much lower cost.
The five-year budget for the TRS in Thailand is supported by the NBTC and is under the UFPD's care. And the services to be provided by the TTRS include SMS and MMS relay services, text and video relay service via the internet, speech to speech relay service, video remote interpreter, real-time text messaging relay service via wireless broadband access, total conversation via internet, as well as wireless broadband access.
