June 23, 2006

Senator John McCain
United States Senate
241 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Senator Bill Nelson
United States Senate
716 Senate Hart Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

RE: S. 2686, Disability Amendments

Dear Senators McCain and Nelson:

The American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD) thanks you greatly for introducing and passing yesterday two specific disability-related amendments to the “Communications, Consumer's Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act of 2006” (S. 2686). Your leadership makes sure that the consumer needs of persons with disabilities are specifically addressed as broadband telecommunications becomes more ubiquitous.

The measure to include consumer premises equipment (CPE) used in Voice IP and to require the FCC to submit a report to Congress every two years on the status of accessible equipment and services for VoIP goes a long way to ensure disability accessibility in telephony that uses broadband technology.

Likewise, to ensure an umbrella disability rights organization will be represented on the DTV Working Group and that the recommendations this Working Group makes must require materials to be in accessible formats and available on accessible websites will ensure that consumers with disabilities will not be left out of educational efforts about the transition to digital TV transmission.

Again, we thank you heartily for your initiative; we believe these two amendments to the June 16 working draft of S. 2686 make the overall bill stronger.

Sincerely,

Andrew J. Imparato
CEO & President