36 CFR Part 1194 - Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Final Standards and Guidelines Jan. 2018 Amendments - Preamble

1. Background

The second set of corrections in this direct final rule restores the TTY-related accessibility requirements for ICT with two-way voice communication to the Access Board’s 508 Standards and 255 Guidelines. As noted, when the Access Board published the ICT Final Rule in January 2017, ICT with two-way voice communication had long been required to ensure TTY compatibility and functionality. However, as discussed below, a drafting error resulted in these TTY-related accessibility requirements being mistakenly removed from the ICT Final Rule. This direct final rule restores these original TTY-related requirements to the Board’s 508 Standards and 255 Guidelines, albeit with minor, non-substantive changes to better align them with the revised organization and language in the ICT Final Rule.

Both the original 508 Standards (issued in 2000) and 255 Guidelines (issued in 1998) required telecommunications products and services with two-way voice communication to provide certain TTY-related features, including a connection point for TTY (e.g., RJ-11 connector), a microphone capable of being turned on and off to allow a user to intermix speech and TTY use, and support for cross-manufacturer, non-proprietary standard TTY signal protocols (e.g., Baudot). See, e.g., Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility Standards - Final Rule, 65 FR 80500 (Dec. 21, 2000); Telecommunications Act Accessibility Guidelines – Final Rule, 63 FR 5608 (Feb. 3, 1998); see also 36 CFR part 1194 (2017), appendix D, section D1194.23(a)-(e) (reprinting original 508 Standards published in 2000 as appendix to revised regulations). TTYs (e.g., teletypewriters) – which were developed in the 1970s – allow persons with hearing- or speech-related disabilities to send and receive text communications over telephone networks.

In recent years, however, other text-based means of communication have emerged, including simple message service (SMS or text messages) and real-time text (RTT) technology. RTT technology permits the transmission of text in near real-time as each character is typed. SMS messages are not transmitted until the user issues a send function (usually by hitting the “enter” key). Like SMS, TTY technology has a significant disadvantage as compared to RTT – namely, to avoid scrambling messages, users must send completed messages on a turn-by-turn basis. This ability to send text transmissions instantly and simultaneously permits more conversational, interactive text-based communications that are akin to telephone conversations, as well as facilitating better communication during emergency situations. As a newer (digital) technology, RTT is directly compatible with wireless and Internet protocol-based networks, whereas TTY, as an analog technology, is not. TTY signals have acoustic characteristics that cause them to be corrupted and become unusable with the typical digitization algorithms used for transmitting voice over wireless and IP-based networks.

By early 2015, when the Access Board published the notice of proposed rulemaking to “refresh” the 508 Standards and 255 Guidelines, RTT technology had matured sufficiently for the Board to propose that RTT supplant TTY as the form of text-based functionality required for ICT with two-way voice communication. See Notice of Proposed Rulemaking - Information and Communication Technology Standards and Guidelines, 80 FR 10880, 10900 – 10901, 10909 & 10910 (Feb. 27, 2015) (hereafter, “ICT NPRM”). Most comments received in response to the ICT NPRM were supportive of the Access Board’s RTT proposal, though some expressed differing views on the appropriate technical standard for RTT interoperability with certain systems (such as Voice over Internet Protocol or “VoIP” systems).

In May 2016, about one year after the ICT NPRM comment period had closed, the FCC initiated a proceeding (at the behest of several telecommunications companies) to update its accessibility rules to allow telecommunications providers and manufacturers to support RTT in lieu of TTY technology in IP-based telecommunication environments. See Transition from TTY to Real-Time Text Technology – Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, 81 FR 33170 (May 25, 2016).

In deference to the FCC’s ongoing rulemaking efforts on a regulatory transition from TTY to RTT technology, the Access Board elected to postpone adoption of RTT-related accessibility requirements in the ICT Final Rule. See 82 FR at 5800. Consequently, we removed the proposed requirements for RTT functionality from Chapter 4 of the final rule, and simply reserved section 412.5 in the final rule for future use should the Board subsequently promulgate RTT-related requirements. See 36 CFR part 1194, appendix C, section 412.5.

By reserving adoption of RTT-related requirements, the Access Board did not thereby intend to leave a “gap” in accessibility requirements to ensure that persons with communication disabilities can use telephone networks. In other words, with the removal and reservation of RTT-related requirements, the TTY-related requirements in the original 508 Standards and 255 Guidelines should have been incorporated into the ICT Final Rule. However, due to a drafting oversight, these existing TTY requirements did not get incorporated into the final rule. As a result, the ICT Final Rule is presently – and unintentionally – silent with respect to TTY functionality requirements for ICT with two-way voice communication.

In this direct final rule, the Access Board restores the TTY-related requirements from the original 508 Standards and 255 Guidelines to ensure that, during the pendency of further rulemaking on RTT-related accessibility requirements, persons with communications disabilities will still be able to send and receive text-based communications over telephone networks.

Under the ICT Final Rule, Federal agencies were afforded one year from rule publication (i.e., Jan. 18, 2018) to comply with the revised 508 Standards. 82 FR at 5790, 5792 & 5821. The Access Board seeks to restore TTY-related requirements to the 508 Standards prior to this compliance date. The Board is not aware of any Federal agency having relied on the mistaken omission of TTY-related requirements from the ICT Final Rule as authorization to reduce or eliminate TTY functionality on their ICT with two-way voice communication.