Mobile communications
Twenty years ago only a few businessmen lugged about heavy expensive mobile phones. Nowadays, no self-respecting teenager is without their mobile which can be customised (both facias and ringing tones) to suit the image required. For teenagers these phones are often mainly used for text messaging. Mobile phones now come with a growing number of additional features such as mp3 music players, digital cameras, television programme downloads, interactive games, etc. As these devices continue to develop, the needs of people with disabilities have been given low priority by the manufacturers and network operators.
Network operators continue to launch new mobile services based on GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) and 3G (third generation), which can provide high speed access to the internet. These include the transmission of data which can be just text, text plus graphics, still pictures, or video.
Plans for fourth generation systems are beginning to be discussed publicly. These are expected to be operational by 2012. An interesting feature is that access by people with disabilities is being considered - an aspect which was notably lacking in the earlier generation plans.
Mobile telephones increasingly require the user to read a small screen to operate many of the functions in the phone. Although the phones incorporate increasingly powerful microprocessors, few manufacturers have seen a commercial opportunity in providing models which incorporate speech output of the messages normally displayed on the screen.
However, changes in the legislation in the USA have meant that manufacturers are now developing a range of accessibility features including output of visually presented information in braille or synthetic speech.
Mobile phone systems have the ability to provide information about the location of the user. In older systems, this was just the cell from which the call was being made. However, 3G systems can provide more precise information, and in future the 4G systems will further improve the accuracy.
This positional information means that information can be provided to the user which is related to their location. For instance, it could provide information about the location of the nearest cash dispenser.
The mobile phone could hold a digital map of the area (or it could be downloaded from the network). This could be supplemented with information about bus timetables or roadworks which block the pavement.
Intelligent agents in the network could automatically re-direct calls selectively to different terminals; for instance, in the evening, calls, other than from family members, would be redirected to an answering service. For disabled visitors, the calls could be automatically routed via a relay service, enabling translation into other languages or modalities (such as sign language).
The 3G phones have the capability to transmit and receive video which could offer the possibility of someone in a service centre providing guidance to a blind pedestrian who is unable to find their destination. Such a facility could also support remote sign language interpretation.
The mobile phone can also permit access to the internet, but the size of the screen is a significant limitation for many partially sighted users.
It is predicted that mobile access to television broadcasts will become increasingly popular as more radio spectrum becomes available for these services. It is not known whether the broadcasters will include subtitles and audio description, and how this would work in practice on a mobile handset.
Go to Tiresias Mobile Phone Guidelines