Access for 9-1-1 and Telephone Emergency Services

Q: What is VCO? Who uses it?

A: VCO is voice carryover. It is a communication hybrid of TTY and voice. VCO allows a person with hearing loss to speak directly to the call taker and read the response that is typed back. Many persons who became deaf or hard of hearing later in life prefer to speak instead of type. They use what is called voice carryover (VCO). With VCO, the caller speaks directly into the phone, and the call taker types back via TTY to the caller. VCO can be accomplished with standard stand-alone TTY equipment simply by having the call taker alternate between listening on the handset when the caller is speaking and placing the handset in the TTY couplers to type a response.