kokonut

Sam's Hearing Life: The jobs I never thought I'd have... are the jobs I'm doing!

Interesting read. Anybody with a CI has a similar experience with phones?

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"... turns out they are telling the truth."

Deafness

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Deaffy

I can use the phone. But it varies sometimes. Depending on what phone I am using or if the other person is on a cell in a noisey place. I sometimes cant tell if I am talking to a male or female over the phone. The other day I mistook my brother for my mother. They both sound about the same on the phone but in person I can tell the difference in their voice!

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Experience is the best education one can ever have.

RIGHT EAR
Implanted 7-16-10
Activated 8-10-10
Nucleus 5

LEFT EAR
Unaided deaf.

drphil

My experience with the phone-can hear the dial tone but not anyone speaking. Mentioned this at Sunnybrook-Cochlear Implant section- about half of implanted persons are in the same boat.
Me: Just continue using my Ultra Tech 1140 TTY accessing the 711- relay service.

Implanted Advanced Bionics-Harmony activated Aug/07

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Get Real:Implanted Sunnybrook/Toronto -Advanced Bionics-Harmony activated Aug/07

john57

I can use the cell phone quite well. I have to search and try out phones in a company store to pick out the phones that have the best sound quality for my needs. Some cell phones will cause a bit of interference with my hearing aid or CI. I use the 100% T-coil when using the cell phone in a noisy surroundings. I currently using a Rumor Touch phone on Virgin mobile which is also on Sprint.

overthepond

I can speak to my mum on the phone (long distance/usually bad connection since they live up the mountains) thats all, When I call their house, they have answering machine spoken in german which i could tell the difference in accent easily then hang up to try later.

currently using iphone normally with no accessories

deafbajagal

Wow. That's amazing. Do you have to know the people you're calling to understand, or can you talk to virtually anyone and understand what they are saying? Are you using your CI to talk on the phone?

deafskeptic

I was able to speak on a cellphone with an m4 microphone and a t4 coil. I had to give it up though because I can't afford it. I was forty before I ever spoke on a phone. It was much easier talking to my family than strangers though.

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Activated on May 9th.
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john57

No, I do not need to know who is calling in order to understand. I did ran in a few cases that a Brazil job recruiter working in the US call me about a job and yes I did had a bit of trouble. In other words I can understand about 90% of strangers that call me. Yes I am using my CI. The results that one can get from a CI varies from person to person. My results are quite remarkable.

deafbajagal

Wow. That is really cool. If you don't mind me asking, were you hearing before you became deaf and got your CI?

john57

I was born HOH with small cochlea’s and never had “normal” hearing. Worn hearing aids all my life and still do with the left ear. I started with a bulky body aid which took a bit of adjusting. I was mainstream at school and then went to R.I.T./N.T.I.D. to get a engineering degree.

deafbajagal

Interesting! I'm glad the CI worked out so well for you.

sr171soars

Yeah, I use the phone quite easily.

Landline, cell phone, conference call, it doesn't matter to me. The main thing is not to be trying to do a phone call in a very noisy environment. That can be challenging to say the least. I have done it but one has to concentrate totally on the conversation. Obviously, I don't do as well when it is quieter.

I don't use T-Coil (never used it and wouldn't know how to turn it on without the manual) or other settings to facilitate using a phone. I just stick with my normal program (ADRO) and go with it.

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Deaffy

Yeah I dont go into T-coil either. I am pretty much always in my everyday program. T-coil to me cuts out too much noise and when the other party begins to talk it will cut off the first word or two of what they are saying then clicks on. But I fair pretty well over the phone in my everyday prog.

__________________
Experience is the best education one can ever have.

RIGHT EAR
Implanted 7-16-10
Activated 8-10-10
Nucleus 5

LEFT EAR
Unaided deaf.

sr171soars

In my HA days, I remember that the T-Coil picked up every blinkin' electronic noise like computers and such. That is the main reason why I never bothered with it with my CA. Especially now that with a CI, I can "HEAR" if you know what I mean. Who needs the aggravation?

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But trailing clouds of glory till He comes...

Foolishness is not a virtue

john57

If you are using the auto T-coil and yes it will cut out the first second or two so I just use the manual T-coil setting on the processor itself and it is very helpful in noisy situation and in outdoors when there is allot of wind.
I use an audio loop system at work that allows both ears, one with a hearing aid the other ear with the CI to comunicate with pople on the phone. I used to spend hours on conference calls with 14 people on it. I undertand that the T-coil can pickup interference but I found ways to work arround it. It is just one of the tools that I use in my toolbox.

hugoboss84

I used to be able to talk on the phone briefly in the early days when I wore HA - I would take off the HA and talk with the volume at max; it worked for me. Later on while my hearing declined, my phone usage dropped sharply. When I got the CI recently, I was desperate to try out various ways to get back on the phone:

- Use Captel phone (speech to text device) at work to help me get familiar with talking on the phone. I try to avoid reading captions every now and then and listen more attentively. I use Captel for one-on-one conversations with CI on P2 (M/T).
- Use a regular headset on a work phone with high volume booster and my CI set to P2 (M/T). It is clear enough, but can get a little challenging without any captions. I use this for conference calling with 3-4 people. Beyond that, its extremely challenging.
- Use a Blackberry device for personal calls with friends and family. Again no captions here and I am trying to pick up conversations slowly. CI is set on P3 (Focus). Initially my Blackberry would work on Telecoil (P2), but only when my Network status is on 3G. When it drops to EDGE or GPRS, telecoil is a huge mess, so I just avoid it. Maybe I should consider switching to a CDMA carrier like Verizon or Sprint for better sound quality.

It is going pretty alright with the phone, but there are a few challenges:
- If you wear CI and the person at the other end is in a noisy environment, the noise is sensitive, i.e. the CI will pick up the environmental noise at the other person's end.
- If the other person is using a VOIP service, the sound quality can be distorted.
- I have never found the Telecoil useful. And even though I want to buy an iphone or android phone, I cannot because I just cant hear well on them. However, there are people I know who buy neckloops and other accessories to make best use of telecoil on these smartphones. Can be useful I guess.