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Telecom Service for Special Needs People

ABU DHABI — People with hearing and speech disabilities in the UAE will be able to seek emergency help or do daily chores by communicating through a device, as an initiative called ‘Echo of Silence’ will be launched in November.

Financed and technologically launched by nation’s telecommunication companies, Etisalat, du and YahSat, it is part of the corporate social responsibility (CSR).

The service, which will be the first of its kind in the Arab world, will run on a technology known as Relay Service, under which country’s telecom companies will set up a call centre where a device will change a print message to a voice call and vice-versa. If the receiver has hearing disability, the device will print a voice call and send it to the receiver as a message.

For instance, someone with special needs requires a doctor, or any other emergency service, he/she will be able to seek help by using the technology, Mohamed Al Ghanim, director-general of the Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (TRA), said at a ceremony marking the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU).

Abdullah R. Al Suwaidi, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Social Affairs, and Al Ghanim signed the MoU in the presence of Maryam bint Mohammed Khalfan Al Roumi, Minister for Social Affairs. Around 500 people in the country will benefit from the service.

The three telecom companies have contributed Dh8 million towards the cost of setting up this programme, as an initiative pushed by the TRA on the occasion of International Telecommunication Day last year. Etisalat is already providing its services to physically challenged persons through its freedom package, which is available to individuals with hearing, visual and physical disabilities.

The freedom package includes a host of discounts, offers and benefits that include free subscription/connection for bundled services; 50 per cent flat discounted rate on monthly usage and rental amounts; and eligibility for the Loyalty Programme rewards and volume bill discounts. People with hearing and speech problems need postpaid mobile number (GSM/3G), voice calls and video calls, MMS and SMS, Pushmail, and Location Based Service (LBS). In the UK, the British Telecom provides Textphones service to hearing- and speech-impaired persons. Textphone is plugged into a telephone socket at home, has a keyboard and a display that lets you type and read your conversation. To make a textphone call, the other person must either have a textphone or the caller must use Typetalk. The Royal National Institute for Deaf People provides Typetalk, a link between the textphone user and the hearing person and helps put the hearing impaired caller in touch with the person they wish to speak to.

haseeb@khaleejtimes.com