Hello,

I am an intern with the American Foundation for the Blind, and am
working on a project related to cell phone accessibility. I have begun,
and would like to continue, to compile a list of persons with vision
loss who have had difficulty with obtaining and using their past, and/or
current, cell phone.

Some of the problems I have found are the lack of knowledge from store
employees about which phones are the most accessible, and how to obtain
them. Some other problems are phones that have buttons that are hard to
distinguish by touch, lack of documentation in accessible format, and
inability to access on-screen information such as caller ID and
phonebook.
Another finding was that there are few phones that have off-the-shelf
accessibility features, and many that did proved to be only partially
accessible. Lastly, the phones that could run accessibility software
programs, such as Talks and Mobile Speak, were a small number, and quite
expensive.

Due to the large amount of dissatisfied people, AFB is considering
filing a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
about lack of upholding Section 255 of the Telecommunications Act, which
requires that cell phone manufacturers and service providers do all that
is readily achievable to make each product or service accessible.

If you would like to voice your input, I would love to hear your
concerns and ideas.

Please call me at 1-888-824-2184, or e-mail me at 
<mailto:tannis%40afb.net>[log in to unmask]

Thank you,

Tara Annis

Tara Annis

American Foundation for the Blind

1-888-824-2184

<mailto:tannis%40afb.net>[log in to unmask]

www.afb.org


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