Don’t burden small cable with expensive fixes to serve disabled customers: CCSA cautions

Small cablecos, appearing before the CRTC yesterday, cautioned against a one-size fits all approach to providing telecom and broadcast services to people with disabilities, saying installing complex and expensive systems is beyond the financial reach of smaller operators and that the eventual transition to digital systems should solve the problem.Chris Edwards, VP, corporate and regulatory affairs at the Canadian Cable Systems Alliance (CCSA), which represents over 85 small independent companies operating in mostly rural areas, says it's not feasible for companies with as few as 200 subscribers to upgrade their systems to pass through the Described Video (DV) and Audio Descriptions (AD) streams of analog over-the-air television stations."I guess our point there is that it would not be practical to expect smaller companies to develop their own technical solutions to some of these issues. These are massively complex and potentially expensive systems," Edwards told Canadian Communications Reports.The CRTC has warned that broadcast and telecom services providers may expect additional obligations as a result of this week's hearing examining accessibility issues.Organizations representing several forms of disabilities have suggested a slew of changes to telecom and broadcast operations, which they say will help disabled people to have better access to services. These include making DV and AD available on all broadcast services. Disability organizations also want an improvement in the quality of DV and AD content, as well as broadcast services offered through IPTV, as well as making the websites of all licensees accessible to the disabled through WC3 formats. Some have also called on the CRTC to explore ways of making companies ensure that terminal devices are accessible to the disabled. In addition, representatives for the disabled have called for the establishment of a Video Relay Service (VRS) policy, arguing that the U.S. and some European countries have made major strides in providing better services to their disabled citizens. However, Edwards told commissioners at the hearing that many of these issues have serious consequences for members of the CCSA, and called for a national solution, especially when it concerns VRS - a telecom service that allows deaf, hard of hearing and speech-impaired individuals to communicate over the phone.Edwards says many of the solutions discussed at the hearing relate more to telecom issues than broadcast, adding that big companies are better suited to deal with them."The large telephone companies are very used to dealing with these sorts of issues as large formally regulated enterprises. Small cable companies are not like that. And so our real concern is that solutions will be developed that make sense in the sort of framework that the large telecom companies think of, but they don't necessarily make sense for a system that's got 500 customers," he says.As an example Edwards cites the recent establishment of a telecom ombudsman organization that he says was developed by Bell Canada and other large telcos. While he says the idea maybe a good one, it doesn't fit small cablecos because the complaint process works differently for large and small companies."In other words, if you were a telephone customer and you are a Bell customer, one sort of administrative framework for dealing with complaints might be appropriate. If you were a telephone customer of a cable company that's in a small town, your more effective procedure is to go down to their office and tell them you are annoyed."Responding to questions on the accessibility of CCSA member websites, Edwards told commissioners that technical fixes could be too expensive, and that CCSA members may lack the expertise and face difficulties in maintaining websites.Earlier in the day, SaskTel told the commission that it will cost the telecommunications company about $500,000 to make its website accessible. Responding to a similar question, Harris Boyd, regulatory consultant for CCSA, said most of the Alliance's members were still novices on this requirement, adding that $500,000 would simply be too much for some, if not, most of the small cablecos. Some companies, he said, have as few as 200 subscribers."If you only have a couple of a hundred customers and you have got an expensive solution and those couple of hundred customers got to pay for it, we have to be concerned the costs passed on to them," he said in an interview.Digital transition will provide a solutionThe CCSA pointed out in written comments to the CRTC in June that many of these services can be provided once small cablecos transition to digital."In a fully digital system it is much easier and less costly to make described video services available to customers as well as much easier for them to access it," the CCSA wrote. "When over-the-air stations are transmitted in digital CCSA member systems that offer digital services will be able to make the described video available to their customers."Described video will also become available as small cablecos begin offering video-on-demand services, the CCSA added. "Only a handful of CCSA member companies are currently offering video-ondemand services. Those that do currently have no described video in their programming inventories. When described video does become available for distribution on a video-on-demand basis customers will be able to select this version of the programming from the on-screen menu."Other organizations scheduled to appear at this week's hearing include the Council of Canadians with Disabilities, Arch Disability Law Centre, Canadian Hearing Society, Rogers Communications Inc., Citizens with Disabilities-Ontario, MTS Allstream and GoAmerica, Inc.

Don’t burden small cable with expensive fixes to serve disabled customers: CCSA cautions

News | 11/20/2008 8:32 pm EST

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