Safeguards for disabled users
There are some who would argue that the economic circumstances of the supply of goods and services of any kind should take no account at all of the needs of disabled or disadvantaged people. The free market, on this model, would be fully consumer-driven and free of subsidy or any other kind of economic distortion. People who are deprived of consumer power, by reason of low income, disability or special needs, would be compensated by means of a social income from the State, to restore their spending power to something approximating to the national norm. In this way, trade would flourish and everyone would enjoy a wide range of consumer choice and the status of a valued customer. This argument accommodates the free trade and the interventionist doctrines so neatly that it has been put forward by supporters on both sides. The taxpayer has yet to give a view on it and mechanisms for putting it to practical test are as yet only embryonic. It might appeal to the European Commission as a way forward, allowing as it does of the separated development of trade and social policies, but for the fact that the Single Market is almost complete while the Social Programme has hardly commenced. In practice therefore, and for the foreseeable future, any protection to be offered to consumers who are put at a disadvantage as a result of the advent of the Single Market must be found by making adjustments to the mechanism of that market itself.
In the Telecommunications sector, the need for adjustment has been recognised and the principle has been set out in the form of Universal Service. Starting from the basis that the less profitable customers could be marginalised by service providers who were fighting powerful competition, Universal Service has been developed into a charter for the right of everyone to have basic telephone services at an affordable price. This stage was not reached without a great deal of argument and it still leaves the questions of what are basic services and what is meant by affordable. It has proved easier to define the basic levels of service for customers who might be uneconomic, perhaps because they live in remote areas or make very little use of the service, than it has for those who have special needs on account of disability or other reasons. It is no doubt for this reason that the European Directives bringing about liberalization and deregulation have very little to say about the practicalities of ensuring that discrimination against disabled users of the Telecommunications services is avoided.
The commitment of the European Commission to the avoidance of discrimination is well documented. Nevertheless, the impression may be gained from a study of the detailed proposals for legislation that this commitment is lacking in substance. Those Directives on Telecommunications which have already been enacted do no more than recognise the principle that particular provisions for disabled people may be required. The revisions to these Directives which are currently proposed include a requirement for appropriate provisions to be made without giving any indication of what they might be. There is a real risk that, because of the way in which the legislation has been assembled, the proposed revisions will fail to address a very crucial area of difficulty. The ability of many disabled people to use the telephone network depends more upon the availability of telephone instruments of appropriate performance than on the services provided by the network operator. Universal Service obligations written into legislation governing network services will not be binding upon the equipment supply sector, which has been liberalized quite separately. For very large numbers of people with disabilities, the right of access to the networks which Universal Service sets out to guarantee will mean very little if they cannot continue to obtain the necessary equipment. For them, the line socket may represent a newly-created barrier rather than a gateway to the freedom of the network.
The Telecommunications sector is one of great technological innovation, and liberalization is intended to provide freedom and encouragement for the rapid application of developing technology. Inevitably, as the rate at which information can be transmitted and presented increases and the stores of information available for retrieval expand massively, the technical sophistication of terminal equipment will also increase in order to cope. Technology-driven developments can very easily lead to the unintentional exclusion of people who have some impairments of hearing or vision, when the pressure to present data for rapid assimilation places greater demands upon both senses. COST 219 has frequently drawn attention to the very large numbers of people across Europe who have some form of disability. If these people are not to become the lower tier of a two-tier Information Society (a situation which the European Commission is pledged to avoid), the Telecommunications industry must accept that its technology must be shaped to fit the users, and that not all users will wish to communicate at the same fast pace.
However, it is only right that disabled people should expect Telecommunications experts to be expert in Telecommunications technology, not in disability. It must be the responsibility of disabled consumers, and of those who lobby on their behalf, to make their requirements clear. This poses the difficulty that the consumer can only speak from experience of familiar technology while the technologist is looking forward to the unfamiliar. The tendency then is to try to preserve the obsolescent, with the doubly unfortunate result that innovative opportunities are missed and a connection between disability and obsolescence is reinforced. It is more important than ever for technologists who have experience of disability across its wide range to act as intermediaries between the system planners and the customers. Programmes such as COST 219 have a particular part to play in assisting legislators and standards makers to ensure that practical safeguards for disabled consumers are introduced.
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