I tried calling the telephone number listed but I was unsuccessful.  Has
anyone been able to connect with this service and tried it?  Telephone
rates are so cheap with my long distance carrier that it now costs as
little as a domestic long distance call to connect to the UK.  It's 2.5
cents a minute whether calling New York, Toronto, or London from Chicago.

Terri's arguments could also be applied to the Newsline service to some
extent.  After all, it essentially repackages content from newspaper
websites.

Kelly



----- Original Message -----
From: "Terri Hedgpeth" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, November 29, 2003 8:43 AM
Subject: Re: PhoneAnything


> While on the surface this sounds great, as a blind person, if I lived
in
> the UK and company's could be considered in compliance with disability
> access laws by tapping into this service, I'd surely feel that my
> options for web access were not equal to that of sighted persons. The
> way I read this it means that businesses and organizations would not
> have to make their websites accessible if they tap into this service.
> That in itself is discriminatory towards those who do have computers
> with screen readers and choose not for whatever reason to sign up for
> the service. Also, what about all those outside the service area? With
> such a system one cannot download interesting articles and other
> information, can't send a file or link to another individual, is likely
> very time consuming, certainly flies in the face of mainstreaming and
> puts NRIB in the position of gaitkeeper. Also, for college students,
how
> can they learn to do their own research on the web if businesses,
> organizations and government agencies are able to circumvent the intent
> of the law that requires access to websites? And this certainly isn't
> limited to college students. Blind people who surf the web learn a lot
> of vital computer skills that can transfer to employment. Just read
this
> portion I quoted from the posting and see if you don't agree.
>
> "PhoneAnything's technology will also benefit organisations wishing to
> comply with the Disability Discrimination Act. The Act requires all
> service providers to make reasonable adjustments to the way they
deliver
> services to ensure disabled people can use them. PhoneAnything's
> web-over-phone technology can make an organisation's website instantly
> available to any blind or partially sighted user with a phone -
> organisations can license the technology and provide their website to
> visually impaired customers through specific phone numbers."
>
>
> Terri Hedgpeth
> Disability Specialist=20
> Disability  Resources for Students
> Matthews Center box 87-3202
> Arizona State University
> (480) 965-1232 (v)
> (480) 965-0441 (fax)
>
>
> VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
> To join or leave the list, send a message to
> [log in to unmask]  In the body of the message, simply
type
> "subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations.
>  VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at
> http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/vicug-l.html
>
>


VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
To join or leave the list, send a message to
[log in to unmask]  In the body of the message, simply type
"subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations.
 VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/vicug-l.html