Press Release


    For Immediate Release

February 21, 2003

    For further information, contact:

Charles Crawford, Executive  Director
(202) 467-5081 [log in to unmask]

    Scott Strauss
Spiegel & McDiarmid
(202) 879-4000
[log in to unmask]




    AMERICAN COUNCIL OF THE BLIND SUPPORTS COMPLAINT FILING WITH FCC
AGAINST AUDIOVOX COMMUNICATIONS CORP. AND VERIZON WIRELESS




Today, the  American Council of the Blind (ACB), an organization
representing tens
of thousands of blind and visually impaired people from across the
United States, supports a blind citizen, Dr. Bonnie O'Day, of
Alexandria, Va., in filing a formal complaint with the Federal
Communications Commission against Audiovox Communications Corporation
and Verizon Wireless, Inc., stating that both have failed to make their
wireless telephones and services accessible to people who are blind and
visually impaired.

    Dr. O'Day's filing is the first formal complaint to be submitted to
the FCC to enforce the rights provided under Section 255 of the
Telecommunications Act of 1996. This provision requires that
telecommunications equipment and services be accessible to and usable by
people with disabilities, if readily achievable.

    "My complaint started out as an informal complaint which I filed
with the FCC in June of 2001," explains O'Day. "When I began shopping
for a cellular phone in December of 2000, I went from store to store
looking for a phone that would meet my needs. I finally settled on the
Audiovox CDM9000 as 'the best of the worst.' But I found that many
features of the phone were very difficult to use because most of the
information I needed even for minimal access to the phone's features,
such as caller ID and one-touch dialing, was delivered via a visual
display which is totally inaccessible to me as a person who cannot read
the phone's screen."

    O'Day explains that she contacted both Audiovox and Verizon Wireless
by letter, and that neither company could offer her the hope of any
remedy for these difficulties. In fact, each participated in a "blaming
game," implying that what O'Day requested couldn't be done. "And," O'Day
says, "each one said, even if it could be done, it was the
responsibility of the other party."

    O'Day contacted the American Council of the Blind, and ACB is
supporting her in pursuing a remedy for this situation on her behalf as
well as for the millions of blind and visually impaired people in the
USA who contend with similar difficulties every day.

    According to Christopher Gray of San Francisco, president of the
Council, "Both Audiovox and Verizon Wireless are clearly violating
Section 255 of the Telecommunications Act. The implementing regulations
for that legislation were released in February 1998. The service
providers and the product manufacturers have had more than five years
now to take our needs into account and to design systems and products
which we can use, and they're still dragging their feet, telling us
things like, it's not possible to build a text-to-speech capability into
their phones, or it's too expensive, or it's just over the horizon."

    Gray continues, "It is, in fact, quite possible to do all the things
Dr. O'Day is asking, and we expect the Federal Communications Commission
to move this complaint onto their accelerated docket."

    Charlie Crawford of Silver Spring, Md., Executive Director of the
ACB, says, "It is ludicrous for Audiovox and Verizon Wireless even to
imply that it is not readily achievable for them to make their menus
accessible to us with voice output. We know that blind people living in
Japan are already enjoying a text-to-speech capability on their cell
phones. Verizon Wireless advertises that games and other programs can be
downloaded onto the Audiovox CDM9000, and similar features are being
advertised by several other wireless providers. The same technology used
to download games can be used to download text-to-speech software into a
cell phone. Dr. O'Day's cell phone has 460 kilobytes of usable space
where consumers can download games or ring tones. The software required
to run text to speech would use 250 kilobytes of space. That's
equivalent to two games, or one-sixth of a floppy disk!"

    The complainant states that the defendants have failed to identify
barriers to accessibility and usability as part of their product design
and development processes. Defendants have failed and refused to provide
access to product and service information and related documentation in a
way that equivalent information is provided to sighted customers.

    The complainant is asking Audiovox and Verizon Wireless to make at
least one accessible wireless telephone device in all price categories
available for consumer purchase by June 30, 2003.

    "Voice output will allow blind and visually impaired consumers to
access all the features on their phones that sighted people take for
granted," explains O'Day, "including call forwarding and conference call
setup, caller ID data as calls are received, verbal echo of all user
input, distinct audio alerts at key thresholds such as telephone power
off, link quality change, roaming status change, and key battery
discharge thresholds."

    Currently, blind customers are warned of a low battery just prior to
the battery's expiration and the phone's shut off, whereas sighted users
are able to monitor the status of the battery continually through the
visual display screen.

    "We are optimistic that the FCC will act on the complaint
expeditiously," says ACB President Gray, "and that the complaint filed
today will mean that blind and visually impaired people will soon be one
step closer to full inclusion in one more activity that the rest of
society takes for granted."

    The American Council of the Blind is a national organization of
blind, visually impaired and sighted individuals whose purpose is to
work toward independence, security, equality of opportunity, and
improved quality of life for all blind and visually impaired people. ACB
programs and services include a nationally distributed monthly magazine,
an Internet radio station, numerous scholarship awards, and active
participation in the national legislative and advocacy scene. Founded in
1961, ACB works through more than 70 state and special-interest
affiliates to advocate for the needs of people who are blind and
visually impaired at all stages of life. Learn more about the Council
and its advocacy efforts by visiting its web site at http://www.acb.org,
listening to ACB Radio at http://www.acbradio.org, and calling its
national office in Washington, DC at the numbers listed above.


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