1. Geneva, 25 November 2011 Future Swiss and EU e-accessibility Visions for regulatory & policy communications aspects Nuno Encarnação OFCOM(CH) ITU-T Workshop onTelecommunications relay services for persons with disabilities (Geneva, 25 November 2011)

2. Geneva, 25 November 2011 2 Swiss & EU regulatory and policy basics EU directivesEU directives on e-communications networks and services underline users rightsusers rights, incl. accessibility for all citizens EU policyEU policy in e-inclusion and e-accessibility is well known and active in several frontse-inclusione-accessibility A report on ensuring equivalence in access and choice for disabled end-users is published andreport Its public consultationIts public consultation results are available Swiss law is independent but evolves in general taking in account EU regulatory and policy concepts developments

3. Geneva, 25 November 2011 3 Swiss & EU regulatory and policy examples reach112 reach112, EU emergency services for all citizens Monitoring e-accessibility progressMonitoring e-accessibility progress, to monitor the status and progress, best practices, bench marking… Standardization work Standardization work and particularly mandates, like the one on accessibility requirements for public procurement of ICT products and services

4. Geneva, 25 November 2011 4 Swiss case general aspects The Swiss Disability Discrimination ActDisability Discrimination Act establishes general principles applicable to all sectors, incl. public transport, telecom, TV and othersgeneral principles public transport The Federal Bureau for Equality of People with Disabilities, FBEDFederal Bureau for Equality of People with Disabilities, FBED may suggest improvements in particular sectors and facilitate measures, including financing of innovative projects to improve equality of persons with disabilities

5. Geneva, 25 November 2011 5 Swiss case general aspects, some measures Swiss administration and those fulfilling public tasks of the Confederation (Post, Railways…) have tighter accessibility rules Swiss administration publishes guidance e.g. for barrier-free websites, mobility for disabled, useful contacts in Switzerlandbarrier-free websitesmobility for disableduseful contacts in Switzerland The organization access for all, co- financed by OFCOM, analyzes some 100 Swiss web sites accessibilityaccess for allOFCOM results will be published in November 2011

6. Geneva, 25 November 2011 6 Swiss case telephony relay services [RS] Free telephony relay services [RS] are in telecom Universal Service [US] (Telecom Act and legislation); they are financed from the overall income of this sectorTelecom Act SwisscomSwisscom is the US licensed provider and ProcomProcom is the organization to whom relay services are subcontracted Service providers offer free access to RS

7. Geneva, 25 November 2011 7 Swiss case relay services [RS], some statistics (1) RS Clients are some 1000 to 3000 of the 7000 estimated potential users RS are available 24h/day and 7days/week 35 operators work normally in 4h sessions 80% of the calls are handled in 3…5sec, but users may wait for an available operator answering calls takes 15sec (average) Operators transmit 80words/minute (average) A trial video telephony is starting (2011)

8. Geneva, 25 November 2011 8 Swiss case relay services [RS], some statistics (2) RS usage decreased last decade [2009] Due to increasing usage of sms, Internet video telephony and text exchange via Internet, but new services and new interfaces are bringing clients back Sources of information: French Authorities organized an evaluation of the needs for telephony services of hearing impaired persons in different countriesneeds for telephony services of hearing impaired Swiss Authorities studied the statistical characterization of social impact of the handicapstatistical characterization of social impact of the handicap

9. Geneva, 25 November 2011 9 Swiss case telecom accessibility, other measures Part of the telecom US are also Accessible public payphones Accessible directories for blind and mobility impaired SMS – relay services for deaf and hard of hearing people

10. Geneva, 25 November 2011 10 Swiss case TV Radio and Television Act (RTVA)Radio and Television Act (RTVA) requires relevant content providers to support Captioning/ Subtitling Sign language Audio description relevant telecom providers must distribute above services (RTVA requirement) SRG/SSRSRG/SSR ensures national public service Also here the costs of accessibility are covered by all citizens using the services

11. Geneva, 25 November 2011 11 Trends and visions convergence effects Convergence(s) broadcast-telecom and fixed-mobile services create synergies and Facilitate quicker and wider availability of new interesting devices, features and services Broadcast functions may easily be useful to telephony services and vice versa Fixed network services are now easily available to citizens with mobility impairments Investments on accessibility features can be shared by a wider range of usages… …Convergence is pushing prices downwards

12. Geneva, 25 November 2011 12 Trends and visions total communication for all Total communication for all may mean video-telephony associated to captioning/ subtitling and other metadata (e.g. sign language, audio description and other data) It could imply the Universal Service (ensured by law to all) to include… synchronized transmission of audio/ voice, video, text and other data for conversational/ interactive services like videotelephony, TV and Internet access

13. Geneva, 25 November 2011 13 Trends and visions future relay services [RS] Video telephony could be included in the RS provided in the context of the universal service of electronic communications If so, synergies will be created between policy/ regulation for content (TV, VoD) distribution and telephony services … and captioning/ sub-titling for TV would be comparable to relay services for telephony…

14. Geneva, 25 November 2011 14 Trends and visions future relay services evolution…

15. Geneva, 25 November 2011 15 Trends and visions captioning and automatic translation Captioning and automatic translation (incl. to the sign languages) is likely to have very positive impact on content distribution/ broadcast and on the future (video) telephony Human intervention in RS would still be necessary for higher performing services but such automated RS (probably lower performing, at least in the beginning) would be possible 24h/ 24h, virtually for all, probably at lower costs

16. Geneva, 25 November 2011 16 Trends and visions mobility Increased mobility and enhancements of ICT terminals are already benefitting a very wide population e.g. impaired people, incl. with mobility impairments Mobile terminals may also in the future be a complement for a TV or other services, building hybrid systems adding information, e.g. blogs on the going TV program, audio description of the emission…

17. Geneva, 25 November 2011 17 Trends and visions advantages of being inclusive People with specific disabilities are often minorities Including ageing and multicultural population (particularly people having mother languages different from local ones) may facilitate the development of new devices and services A wider population base may justify some new developments, at least it facilitates business cases and may stimulate economical reasoning behind the social and legal justifications

18. Geneva, 25 November 2011 18 Trends and visions increasing complexity Above trends look promising for all but We need a careful observation of the evolution to ensure all citizens their essential rights and prevent undue developments Tracking e-accessibility environment evolution, particularly in ICT sector, will be a hard task due to complexity, wideness of the scope and the evolution rate This requires a permanent surveillance standardization offers an excellent environment to study solutions to e-accessibility issues

19. Geneva, 25 November 2011 19 Questions? Thank you for your attention nuno.encarnacao@bakom.admin.ch