Telecoms equipment suppliers ignorant of accessibility obligations

Stuart Corner
Monday, 13 July 2009 06:04

IT Industry - Strategy

Three years ago the telecoms industry produced a code setting out how suppliers of communications equipment should make information available on any features of their equipment that would assist people with disabilities or "special communications needs". An ACMA audit found, initially, that only two suppliers were compliant, any many were not even aware of their obligations under the code.

The code: "Information on Accessibility Features for Telephone Equipment Code," was issued by Communications Alliance in December 2005 and was a distinctly inferior outcome to the initial intent which was to require equipment suppliers to incorporate a number of additional features for people with special communications needs.

The only mandatory requirements - as specified in the "Telecommunications Disability Standard (Requirements for Customer Equipment for use with the Standard Telephone Service - Features for special needs of persons with disabilities standard" - are for a hearing aid coupling (not on mobile or cordless handsets) and a raised 'pip' on the '5' key on equipment for use with the standard telephone service.

However in 2002, the Australian Communications Authority (now the ACMA) set up the Disability Standards Working Group (DSWG) to consider how to enhance the accessibility of telecommunications services for people with a disability. It made a number of recommendations  but these were not endorsed by ACA's Communications Technical Regulation Advisory Committee. The committee proposed instead the development of an industry guideline that would only require equipment suppliers to make available information about any accessibility features of their products. The result of this was the current " Accessibility Features" code.

The ACMA then developed an audit methodology to enable it to assess the effectiveness of the code and to determine the need to undertake compliance action. The audit found initially that only Nokia and Motorola were compliant and the ACMA says it found that, "a majority of [suppliers] were not aware of their obligations under the code to provide information about accessibility features and related contact details."

However, it added; "upon learning of their obligations most agreed to do so willingly. In some circumstances, the information was already available in a different format and work was undertaken to ensure the specific requirements of the code were met. In other cases, the ACMA's staff undertook a series of formal communications with [suppliers] to highlight the code requirements in addition to advising the enforcement options available to the ACMA if non-compliance was determined."

The audit initially targeted 15 suppliers with an additional two suppliers added in December 2008. The initial stage was a desktop audit to establish if information was available on the suppliers' websites. This was followed by a shadow shopping exercise to determine whether information was available at a retail level. The ACMA then wrote to suppliers in late 2008 if it had been unable to find appropriate information on the websites.

At the end of the process the ACMA listed compliant 'suppliers' as being, in addition to Nokia and Motorola: i-Phone (sic); Panasonic; LG; Uniden; iMate; Blackberry; Palm; Trillium; ZTE Australia; Samsung Electronics; Sagem; Siemens Australia/Gigaset Communications (two of these - iPhone and BlackBerry - however are devices, not suppliers). Assessments of an additional two providers (Nortel and NEC) were suspended because changes in their operations meant that they were no longer required to comply with the code.