For the longest time – and we mean like 50 years long – a system called TTY or “text telephone” was introduced so that hearing impaired people could communicate over a telephone. It required special equipment on both sides and it was always a TTY-to-TTY session, but it worked well and is still in place today. With the progress of technology, AT&T is now introducing a new system that will improve on everything the TTY system allowed hearing impaired people to do.
The new system is called RTT – short for “Real-time Text” – and it is posed to bring the joys of modern communications to people with hearing loss and speech disabilities. With RTT, each text character is transmitted and received in near real time, allowing for a conversational flow of communication, simultaneously with voice. This eliminates the turn-taking nature of TTY, and shortens sessions dramatically.
According to AT&T, this system doesn’t require specialized equipment, and immediately works on Android or iOS smartphones. User will just need to make sure their operating system is up to date, and then they can download the RTT app from the Play Store. RTT users will be able to communicate directly with both other RTT users – but it is backward compatible with TTY users and TTY public services as well, such as 911 centers and relay services.
AT&T is hoping that this will be the start of making RTT available all over the world. RTT will be available to AT&T users initially, but there is hope that by the end of 2017, more carriers will deploy their own RTT compatible systems.
SOURCE: AT&T
Please be advised that the term, “hearing impaired” is unacceptable. Here is the explanation:
The term “Hearing Impaired” is a technically accurate term much preferred by hearing people, largely because they view it as politically correct. In the mainstream society, to boldly state one’s disability (e.g., deaf, blind, etc.) is somewhat rude and impolite. To their way of thinking, it is far better to soften the harsh reality by using the word “impaired” along with “visual”, “hearing”, and so on. “Hearing-impaired” is a well-meaning word that is much-resented by deaf and hard of hearing people. This term was popular in the 70s and 80s, however, now is used mostly by doctors, audiologists and other people who are mainly interested in our ears “not working.”
While it’s true that their hearing is not perfect, that doesn’t make them impaired as people. Most would prefer to be called Deaf, Hard of Hearing or deaf when the need arises to refer to their hearing status, but not as a primary way to identify them as people (where their hearing status is not significant).
We are deaf, and not people with impairments (obstacles) in life!
“‘Impaired’ implies that there is something wrong with you … we can communicate with the world just fine, but often, it is the hearing community which struggles to communicate with us.”
Hope that you and your people respect by refraining to use the antiquated and offensive term. Hearing loss (deaf, hard of hearing, etc.) is more acceptable for everyone who is not just deaf.
It does not bother me. I have referred to myself as hearing impaired for decades. I only recently found out that some find it offensive. It seems impossible not to offend people in this day and age. We are all walking around on egg shells.
We are not disabled or impaired, we are a linguistic minority.
The FCC says RTT should be backward-compatible to enable interaction with the existing TTY user base, however, there are decreasing number of TTY users. Maybe a thousand or a hundred because Deaf people use either messaging or text app via their smartphones.