VCO experiences

[hugoboss84]

Hi all,

I would like to know if anyone could give me their experiences on VCO technology please. I am new to the technology and though I do know how it works, I am not confident about buying it yet. And neither do I want a TTY as I can atleast speak and hear to some extent. Is VCO a better choice than buying those 50DB+ amplified telephones? I dont know places in America where I could go and try them out. I am in Canada, and I have tried out a few places but they have a limited variety. Thanks.

 

[Dennis S.]

I've used most variations of VCO.

The most common "plain VCO" out there that I've seen is acquiring an Ultratec combination TTY/VCO phone like this:

Combination Amplified Telephone, TTY and VCO Phone from Ultratec: SoundBytes

In the U.S., one would simply have to dial 711 from that phone to get to a VCO Relay service. The person with the VCO phone would use their voice to talk to the person they're calling, and then when they are done speaking, they say, "Go ahead." That signals to the person they're calling to go ahead and speak their mind. Everything that person says will then be typed to the VCO phone user. It's not very fast, but it's passably fast. People who talk to fast will be asked to slow down so that everything can be typed to the VCO user. When the person speaking is done, then they say, "Go Ahead" or "GA" for short. That means it's the VCO users turn. Repeat ad naseum. This kind of technology should be available from realy services in Canada.

There are a few recent enhancements to VCO, but most of those include U.S. only technology that is not available in Canada today. The U.S. allows for a new technology called CapTel to be available to people in the U.S. Go to this website to find out more about it: CapTel - The Captioned Telephone. CapTel is closed captioning put onto a telephone, so it's just like live TV captioning on the news or a live TV show. There's a slight delay between what you hear from the person you're talking to and then the captions show up, but it's very fast.

There's another technology called Video Relay Service, or VRS for short, and you can use VCO through them. However, again, as I said, you have to be in the U.S. to use it. Canada VRS should be coming soon from Sprint, though. There's not much info out there yet, though. Here's a few I've found.

Canadian Association of the Deaf

For more information, contact: Sheila Carlin, scatcad@mts.net, (204)284-9373 (via Relay Service 1-800-855-0511) .... Joanne Cripps, joannec@sentex.net .... or Jim Roots, CAD Executive Director, (613)565-8882 via Relay Service 1-800-855-0511, jroots@cad.ca