Aloha all from Ottawa Canada

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crackerjack

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Hi all,

I'm not deaf but do have a profound hearing loss. I may as well be deaf as I can't understand what's being in said in groups, can't hear on the phone (or whenever a voice is transmitted electronically). I don't have a lot of friends so perhaps my hearing loss is to blame? I know some sign language but can also verbally speak well - so I'm in between worlds - deaf and hearing!

I've found this site when googling for information on choices of cell phones that would have TTY and texting capabilities. Is there a cell phone provider here in Ontario Canada that is good for a deaf person who needs to do texting and TTY calls (but mostly texting).. Like I said - I can't hear on the phone - so I wonder if I can use BRS (Bell Relay Service) with a cell phone.

Have a great day!
crackerjack
 
I am from ottawa too! I would say go to rogers im not sure about bell but rogers has bb and other really easy text devices, i would stay away from bell (for cellphones) they rip u off...i hate bell! although if u dont care about the sim card get a basic voice plan..i dont think they recognize deaf alot here ...:( and ask for there unlimited text, i think rogers has 2500 text a month and i dont think u'd go over that...
 
AHh another Canuck gopher roaming here in AD eh?? Cool welcome here, crackerjack... and do enjoy this site eh!
 
Hi and :welcome: to AD! Hope this forum will help you in many ways with your dilemma and just enjoy being with us. :)
 
Hi and welcome to AD. I'm from TO. Stick with Rogers, also you may check Fido (owned by Rogers) for the price plans. The best coverage by far. When it comes to wireless, as pointed out earlier they don't recognize HoHs and Deafs a lot.
When it comes to phone models try to get one I would go with those new ones with full QWERTY keyboard or blackberry.

Cheers,
Ed
 
:welcome: to AllDeaf forum. I hope you enjoy reading and posting all the threads here. Have fun with us. See you around. :wave:
 
crackerjack said:
Hi all,

I'm not deaf but do have a profound hearing loss. I may as well be deaf as I can't understand what's being in said in groups, can't hear on the phone (or whenever a voice is transmitted electronically). I don't have a lot of friends so perhaps my hearing loss is to blame? I know some sign language but can also verbally speak well - so I'm in between worlds - deaf and hearing!\

I've found this site when googling for information on choices of cell phones that would have TTY and texting capabilities. Is there a cell phone provider here in Ontario Canada that is good for a deaf person who needs to do texting and TTY calls (but mostly texting).. Like I said - I can't hear on the phone - so I wonder if I can use BRS (Bell Relay Service) with a cell phone.

Have a great day!
crackerjack
Click to expand...
Ottawa here.

First of all, I recommend BlackBerry so you can do email, MSN chat, texting, all in one pocket phone. For basics, get an Ultratec Compact/C and a cable to attach to the BlackBerry, so you can make calls to Bell Canada Relay Service. You don't have to type on BlackBerry's tiny keyboard for phone calls, and Bell Canada doesn't provide a publicly accessible IP-Relay for Canadian deafies yet...

Rogers now has a new BlackBerry plan -- $30 for 300MB. This is a much better price than before. They slashed data rates a few days ago because iPhone is coming July 11.

The latest and greatest tool is closed captioning for telephone. Check out SprintCapTel -- Unfortunately it's only available to U.S. .... However, you could purchase two U.S. phone numbers (TollFreeForwarding, or two Vonage virtual numbers, two VoIP lines, two U.S. cellphones etc.) then you can use Sprint's Web Captioned Telephone. This provides closed captioning for the telephone. Works wonderfully and I can use WebCapTel in Canada that way. Keep one U.S. phone number and callforward the other one to the party you want to call.

It can get a little complicated but one can badly-enough want closed captioning for the telephone, that one will go to great lengths to purchase U.S. phone lines for use in Canada (which is nowadays easy, thanks to the Internet), to pull off closed captioning for the telephone as I did.
 
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