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A few years ago, if Mark Stern wanted to call his auto mechanic or his doctor, he was limited to two places: his home or office where he had a specially equipped video phone.
Today, Stern, who is deaf, has more flexibility thanks to advances in technology.
With a laptop computer, a Web cam, and a high-speed Internet connection, the busy executive can communicate with the help of sign-language interpreters from places such as a hotel room or conference center.
"Now, most everyplace I go, I know I'll be capable of making a phone call without having special equipment," said Stern, vice president of product management for Hackensack-based GoAmerica.
Stern, who worked in Silicon Valley and was a GoAmerica customer, joined the company in 2005 when he moved east.
GoAmerica is one of a handful of businesses that provide advanced communications, such as video relay service, to the deaf and hearing impaired, a group estimated to include about 28 million Americans, according to the American Speech Language and Hearing Association.
Last month, the company announced plans to purchase Verizon's relay service for $65 million in cash and stock, a move that could boost GoAmerica's revenues by approximately $80 million and will add customers to its ranks. (GoAmerica doesn't disclose customer numbers, citing federal rules that prevent it from tracking customers.) Last year, the company's revenues were about $12 million and it lost money.
GoAmerica started its corporate life in 1996 as a provider of wireless communications service to corporate customers in 1996, as the Internet boom heated up. The company survived the subsequent bust in part because it switched gears and began providing communications services to the deaf and hearing-impaired community.
All of GoAmerica's revenue comes from a fund overseen by the federal government that is derived from fees tacked onto phone bills. The money pays for GoAmerica and other companies to provide communications services, including the required sign language interpreters, free of charge.
I've never fully understood how a video relay service worked -- that is until Stern called me using one. Actually, a sign language interpreter called me to say she had Stern on the line.
As he sat in a hotel room in Palo Alto, Calif., in front of his laptop's Web cam, he could see the interpreter and she could see him. He signed to her, she spoke to me over the phone, I spoke to her, and she signed what I said back to him. It may sound complicated, but the conversation was practically seamless.
Stern and the interpreter were connected over the Internet. The service, GoAmerica's most recent innovation, gives people like Stern a greater measure of communications freedom.
Later in the week, back at his Hackensack office, Stern showed me the "old" way -- which is only a few years old. He pointed to a camera that sat atop a television on the corner of his desk.
"It's a piece of electronic equipment that can break down," said Stern with a merry grin.
The service he gets using the TV-based video phone, which GoAmerica also provides, is similar to the Web-based video relay in that it connects someone who is deaf with someone who is not, using a sign-language interpreter to relay messages back and forth. But installing the equipment can be a lengthy process -- Stern says the wait is six months to a year. And then the calls must be placed and received from what is essentially a stationary video phone.
For Stern, the Web-based service is a huge improvement.
He can use it on his laptop, but he switched on his desktop computer to show how it worked. After a few clicks, a sharp, clear live picture of the sign language interpreter appeared on his screen. He could make the window smaller and move her around the screen, giving him the ability to display other documents on his computer.
Talking on the phone while looking at a computer screen -- something that people who hear well take for granted -- isn't easy using Stern's TV video phone. He explained he would constantly have to turn away from what he was looking at on his computer to get his face and hands in front of the video camera on top of his television.
GoAmerica's service is completely Web-based, meaning there's no software to download, a fact that Stern says sets his company apart from the handful of other video relay service providers. The image quality is higher than the older television-based service, he explained. The only thing a user needs is a PC and a high-speed Internet connection. (GoAmerica provides a Web cam free of charge for qualified users.)
If you want to call a deaf person, you can access the service as well via the company's video relay Web site -- i711.com.
Technological advances have always helped the deaf. From cochlear implants (Stern has one) to the advent of text messaging, the deaf and hearing impaired have benefited from the digital age's explosion of communications tools.
Stern would like to be able to use a cellphone, or a smart phone with a video camera. Trouble is, he explained, the phones all put the cameras on the back so in order for him to connect to a sign language interpreter he'd have to flip the phone around, sign, flip it back to see the interpreter signing, and on and on.
Another hurdle is the speed of existing cellular networks -- they aren't yet fast enough to maintain a live video connection that can handle a video relay system. But Stern hopes one day they will.
"I would like to sit in the car and have a conversation like anyone else," he said.
A few years ago, if Mark Stern wanted to call his auto mechanic or his doctor, he was limited to two places: his home or office where he had a specially equipped video phone.
Today, Stern, who is deaf, has more flexibility thanks to advances in technology.
With a laptop computer, a Web cam, and a high-speed Internet connection, the busy executive can communicate with the help of sign-language interpreters from places such as a hotel room or conference center.
"Now, most everyplace I go, I know I'll be capable of making a phone call without having special equipment," said Stern, vice president of product management for Hackensack-based GoAmerica.
Stern, who worked in Silicon Valley and was a GoAmerica customer, joined the company in 2005 when he moved east.
GoAmerica is one of a handful of businesses that provide advanced communications, such as video relay service, to the deaf and hearing impaired, a group estimated to include about 28 million Americans, according to the American Speech Language and Hearing Association.
Last month, the company announced plans to purchase Verizon's relay service for $65 million in cash and stock, a move that could boost GoAmerica's revenues by approximately $80 million and will add customers to its ranks. (GoAmerica doesn't disclose customer numbers, citing federal rules that prevent it from tracking customers.) Last year, the company's revenues were about $12 million and it lost money.
GoAmerica started its corporate life in 1996 as a provider of wireless communications service to corporate customers in 1996, as the Internet boom heated up. The company survived the subsequent bust in part because it switched gears and began providing communications services to the deaf and hearing-impaired community.
All of GoAmerica's revenue comes from a fund overseen by the federal government that is derived from fees tacked onto phone bills. The money pays for GoAmerica and other companies to provide communications services, including the required sign language interpreters, free of charge.
I've never fully understood how a video relay service worked -- that is until Stern called me using one. Actually, a sign language interpreter called me to say she had Stern on the line.
As he sat in a hotel room in Palo Alto, Calif., in front of his laptop's Web cam, he could see the interpreter and she could see him. He signed to her, she spoke to me over the phone, I spoke to her, and she signed what I said back to him. It may sound complicated, but the conversation was practically seamless.
Stern and the interpreter were connected over the Internet. The service, GoAmerica's most recent innovation, gives people like Stern a greater measure of communications freedom.
Later in the week, back at his Hackensack office, Stern showed me the "old" way -- which is only a few years old. He pointed to a camera that sat atop a television on the corner of his desk.
"It's a piece of electronic equipment that can break down," said Stern with a merry grin.
The service he gets using the TV-based video phone, which GoAmerica also provides, is similar to the Web-based video relay in that it connects someone who is deaf with someone who is not, using a sign-language interpreter to relay messages back and forth. But installing the equipment can be a lengthy process -- Stern says the wait is six months to a year. And then the calls must be placed and received from what is essentially a stationary video phone.
For Stern, the Web-based service is a huge improvement.
He can use it on his laptop, but he switched on his desktop computer to show how it worked. After a few clicks, a sharp, clear live picture of the sign language interpreter appeared on his screen. He could make the window smaller and move her around the screen, giving him the ability to display other documents on his computer.
Talking on the phone while looking at a computer screen -- something that people who hear well take for granted -- isn't easy using Stern's TV video phone. He explained he would constantly have to turn away from what he was looking at on his computer to get his face and hands in front of the video camera on top of his television.
GoAmerica's service is completely Web-based, meaning there's no software to download, a fact that Stern says sets his company apart from the handful of other video relay service providers. The image quality is higher than the older television-based service, he explained. The only thing a user needs is a PC and a high-speed Internet connection. (GoAmerica provides a Web cam free of charge for qualified users.)
If you want to call a deaf person, you can access the service as well via the company's video relay Web site -- i711.com.
Technological advances have always helped the deaf. From cochlear implants (Stern has one) to the advent of text messaging, the deaf and hearing impaired have benefited from the digital age's explosion of communications tools.
Stern would like to be able to use a cellphone, or a smart phone with a video camera. Trouble is, he explained, the phones all put the cameras on the back so in order for him to connect to a sign language interpreter he'd have to flip the phone around, sign, flip it back to see the interpreter signing, and on and on.
Another hurdle is the speed of existing cellular networks -- they aren't yet fast enough to maintain a live video connection that can handle a video relay system. But Stern hopes one day they will.
"I would like to sit in the car and have a conversation like anyone else," he said.
