BT Fined £800,000 For Next Generation Text Relay Delay

BT has been fined £800,000 by communications regulator Ofcom for failing to launch its next generation text-to-voice service before the required deadline of April 18, 2014.

The ‘Next Generation Text’ (NGT) relay service was eventually launched late last year with the promise that it would make it easier for people with speech or hearing impairments to have real time conversations over the phone through a variety of voice and text inputs, which convert speech to text and vice versa.

However Ofcom launched an investigation following the delay, which BT says was a “one-off” caused by problems with the sound quality of emergency calls. Ofcom accepted that the problems were discovered late in the project’s development, but added that BT had 18 months to deliver the service on time.

Text relay fine

“The size of the penalty imposed on BT reflects the importance of providing an improved text relay service to its customers with hearing and speech impairments,” said Claudio Pollack, Ofcom’s consumer and content group director. “However, BT has invested significantly in launching the new text relay service, which allows users to have conversations more easily and fluently and on new devices. We welcome the fact the service is now operating successfully.”

NGT is available to all BT customers as well as users of other landline and mobile providers through various wholesale agreements. It is seen as a major improvement over previous text relay services required the use of £300 Textphone, which was not easily portable, the use of a 18002 prefix when dialling, and did not allow for parallel speech and text with users forced to take turns to speak or type.

The service provides access on a wider range of devices and provides users with a standard 11-digit phone number called a ‘Textnumber’, meaning the person dialling does not need to know about the voice relay service when calling.

Communications are real time, with voice and text channels open at the same time, allowing users to interrupt and be able to use both inputs. For example, people with some hearing can listen using voice, but will have a text backup in case they don’t catch a particular word.

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