WASHINGTON-Cellular companies and disability advocates appear to have reached a compromise over proposed changes to a revised standard for mobile-phone hearing-aid compatibility, resolving a dispute that escalated in recent weeks and threatened the prospect of carriers and manufacturers meeting the next Federal Communications Commission compliance deadline in September.
While the FCC granted waivers to mobile-phone carriers offering dual-band GSM handsets with respect to the first hearing-aid compatibility benchmark in September, sources said the agency has put wireless companies on notice there will be no waivers of this fall’s cell-phone HAC deadline.
There are two components to the upcoming Sept. 16 deadline. One requires that the largest mobile-phone carriers make available either five hearing-aid compatible handsets or ensure that 25 percent of all handset models offered are hearing-aid compatible.
The second component is technologically trickier for wireless firms and appears to be at the center of the current dispute between consumer proponents and the wireless industry. It calls for two handset models per phone manufacturer and carrier to meet the FCC requirement for telecoil hearing-aid compatibility.
Up to now, much of the attention on mobile phone HAC has focused on reducing radio-frequency emissions to a level such that cell phones do not cause loud, buzzing noises when handsets are used by people with hearing aids that lack telecoils. The telecoil challenge may be greater than what the wireless industry anticipated. It is estimated 30 percent of the 6-million-plus hearing-aid users have hearing aids with telecoils.
Last September, the nation’s large wireless carriers had to meet a requirement that either four handset models, or 25 percent of all handset models offered, were hearing-aid compatible with respect only to RF emissions, not telecoil coupling.
The nation’s largest group for people with hearing disabilities said a lot is riding on the outcome of revisions to existing American National Standards Institute guidelines for mobile phone hearing-aid compatibility. The FCC allows wireless companies to meet the current ANSI C63.19 standard or the draft revised standard that is the source of controversy.
“We want to make sure compliant phones are usable,” said Brenda Battat, associate executive director of the Hearing Loss Association of America (formerly Self Help for Hard of Hearing People).
With mobile phones increasingly becoming replacements for landline telephones, consumer advocates want to make sure that millions of hearing-aid users have access to modern communications. Disability advocates have been fighting since the mid-1990s to get cell phones covered by the Hearing Aid Compatibility of 1988. It was not until 2003 that the FCC set a timetable to do just that. The agency modified HAC requirements for major cell-phone carriers in June.
Battat said she believed industry and consumer groups had an understanding on the revised ANSI standard before industry began to pursue amendments. Battat said changes being sought by industry could reflect wireless industry fear that it cannot meet the Sept. 16 telecoil coupling deadline and therefore wants a new standard that meets current phone HAC capability.
Battat said it looked like industry was trying to fit the foot to the shoe, rather than the other way around. She said the industry-consumer settlement includes some provisions for consumers in exchange for agreeing to adhere to the current ANSI standard so that wireless firms can meet the September deadline. A new hearing-aid compatibility standard will go into effect after final approval by ANSI and the FCC.
Stephen Julstrom, an electrical engineer and an expert in the field of hearing technology, said the fight over revisions to the ANSI mobile phone HAC standard has major implications for individuals with hearing aids.
“The current un-amended version of the standard will not be a guarantee of adequate [cell phone] performance with telecoil-equipped hearing aids,” said Julstrom, a consultant associated with Etymotic Research Inc. of Illinois. Etymotic is a leading research and development firm in hearing technology.
Joe Farren, a spokesman for cell-phone trade group CTIA, said participants working on the revised ANSI standard are “working through the usual technical issues that arise with any endeavor such as this. But the goal is still to be ready by September.”
What is unclear is how the revised ANSI standard will impact FCC enforcement of this September’s deadline and a February 2008 deadline obligating wireless carriers to ensure that 50 percent of their handsets are compatible with hearing aids.
Indeed, the full commission may have to approve the revised ANSI standard that ultimately emerges. Despite the latest snag in the campaign, progress is being made in the design of cell phones and hearing aids for purposes of hearing-aid compatibility, particularly since the arrival of Steve Largent at CTIA in November 2003. The compatibility issue is highly technical and complex. “There’s been a sea change at CTIA,” said Battat. CR
