Coalition of Organizations for Accessible Technology

October 17, 2007

Contacts:
Jim House (TDI) 301-589-3786
Rosaline Crawford (NAD) 301-587-7730
Jenifer Simpson (AAPD) 202-457-0046
Karen Peltz Strauss (CSD) 202-363-1263

Washington, D.C. – Today, the Coalition of Organizations for Accessible Technology (COAT) testified before the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet about problems for persons with disabilities during the transition to digital television. Analog television transmissions will end on February 17, 2009, when digital transmission will be fully implemented. This is the first time this new disability coalition, formed in March 2007, has testified before a U.S. Congressional committee.

COAT witness, Claude Stout, Executive Director of Telecommunications for the Deaf, Inc. (TDI) and Chair of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Consumer Advocacy Network, testified to a litany of problems associated with the digital television transition for people with disabilities. “On a regular basis, we receive reports about cable TV converter boxes not working effectively for caption users, DTV tuners with captions that ‘slide off the TV screen,’ programs that contain garbled captions, and captions that are lost in transmission. And that’s not all of it. There’s confusion over the scope of the FCC's captioning regulations, concerns about accessibility features (such as caption controls) that are deeply buried at the bottom of on-screen menus, and TV stations and cable companies that ignore our concerns.”

Stout added: “For our friends who are blind or have vision loss, we have no guarantees that video description will be passed through via the digital signal in February 2009. Accessing on-screen menus and program guides is also a central concern for persons who are unable to navigate these guides with their eyes.” Video description is the provision of audio narration of visual elements on video programming, provided during natural pauses in dialogue. It is turned on by the viewer who needs it. Several TV programmers, such as public television, voluntarily provide video description for persons with vision disabilities.

The Coalition of Organizations for Accessible Technology, or COAT, is a new coalition of disability organizations, launched in March 2007, to advocate for legislative and regulatory safeguards that will ensure full access by people with disabilities to evolving high speed broadband, wireless and other Internet protocol (IP) technologies. COAT consists of over 130 national, regional, and community-based affiliates 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 benefit like everyone else. More information about the disability coalition is available at its website http://www.coataccess.org. COAT’s Steering Committee consists of representatives from the following organizations: American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD), American Council of the Blind (ACB), American Foundation of the Blind (AFB), Communication Service for the Deaf (CSD), National Association of the Deaf (NAD).