The Federal Communications Commission this week is expected to approve new rules requiring certain handsets sold by mobile-phone carriers to be compatible with hearing aids and to carry labeling stating as much.
The FCC, sources said, will lift an exemption in a 1988 federal law giving the mobile-phone industry a pass on telecom hearing-aid compatibility. In October 2000, following negotiations in the 1990s that failed to produce a market solution acceptable to hearing-aid representatives, a disability consumer group petitioned the FCC to repeal the exemption. About 8 million people in the United States have hearing aids.
The mobile-phone industry, already battling to get relief from federal mandates, lobbied aggressively to avoid being hit with a hearing-aid compatibility requirement.
The FCC likely will stop short of imposing a one-size-fits-all regulatory solution. Instead, the FCC may require low-end and high-end phones sold by each wireless carrier or perhaps a small percentage of all handsets manufactured to be engineered to work with hearing aids. Federal regulators also may give mobile-phone operators time to come into compliance with hearing-aid compatibility guidelines, possibly establishing strict benchmarks to guard against any backsliding by carriers.
To address interference caused by digital handsets to hearing aids, the FCC plans to give its blessing to an industry-approved standard that will govern mobile phones as well as hearing aids. The mobile-phone industry has argued the ANSI 63.19 standard-sanctioned by the American National Standards Institute-needs further validation and refinement.
Government engineers who reviewed the standard apparently are satisfied with it, according to an advisor to one FCC commissioner.
Hearing-aid vendors have agreed to include literature with the devices explaining cell-phone interference and the ANSI standard.
The FCC is also expected to call for an aggressive educational campaign to aid consumers. The Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association last week announced enhancements to its Web site www.AccessWireless.org to better assist people with disabilities, including those with hearing loss.
