Coalition of Organizations for Accessible Technology

September 19, 2007

The Honorable Bart Gordon
Room 2310 Russell House Office Building
Washington, D.C.
Via Fax 202-225-6887

The Honorable John Shimkus
Room 2452 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Via Fax 202-225-5880

The Honorable Anna Eshoo
Room 205 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Via Fax 202-225-8890

The Honorable Charles Pickering
Room 229 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Via Fax 202-225-5031

Re: H.R. 3403: The 911 Modernization and the Public Safety Act of 2007

Dear Representatives Gordon, Shimkus, Eshoo, and Pickering:

The Coalition of Organizations for Accessible Technology (COAT) writes to thank you for your support of H.R. 3403, The Modernization and Public Safety Act of 2007. COAT believes that this is forward-thinking legislation that will promote and enhance public safety by facilitating the rapid deployment of IP-enabled 9-1-1 and E-9-1-1 services, and by encouraging the nation's transition to a national IP-enabled emergency network. In particular, we want to express our great appreciation for inclusion of the specific provisions that will improve 9-1-1 and E-9-1-1 access by people with disabilities.

COAT is a coalition of national and local disability consumer groups that advocates for legislative and regulatory safeguards to ensure full access by people with disabilities to evolving high speed broadband, wireless and other Internet protocol (IP) technologies. COAT consists of over 120 national, regional, and community-based organizations dedicated to making sure that as our nation migrates from legacy public switched-based telecommunications to more versatile and innovative IP-based and other communication technologies, people with disabilities will not be left behind.

COAT believes that H.R. 3403 will go a long way toward ensuring that people with disabilities have equal access to 9-1-1 emergency public safety answering points through the identification of barriers and implementation of solutions in current and new technologies. It is essential that the national migration plan for 9-1-1 services involves people with disabilities in its development, and that steps are taken early on to ensure identification and implementation of accessibility solutions. It is also critical that providers of all forms of telecommunications relay services (including IP relay and video relay services) be involved in the development of this plan and that they be given the same parity in protection from liability and non-discriminatory access to 9-1-1 centers that is currently enjoyed by other wireline and wireless telephone carriers. We applaud the provisions in H.R. 3403 that will achieve these objectives.

Beneficiaries of these measures will include over 31 million people who are deaf or hard of hearing and the several million people with severe speech disabilities, many of whom rely on text and/or video to communicate by phone. In addition, “baby boomers,” as they age, will substantially expand the number of people with hearing loss to 78 million by 2030 and they, too, will benefit greatly from the steps required by the proposed legislation. We further believe that people with vision loss and people with multiple disabilities will benefit from enactment of the proposed bill.

COAT thanks you for introducing this very important legislation. We are deeply grateful for your leadership on behalf of millions of people with disabilities and their families. We look forward to working with you and your staffs to ensure that this provision becomes law.

Sincerely,
COAT Steering Committee*

*A full listing of COAT affiliates can be found at www.coataccess.org.