Regulatory

July 2014 – Wireless RERC researcher Ben Lippincott, along with Timothy Creagan (U.S. Access Board) and Jamal Mazrui (FCC) will address wireless accessibility at a webinar on Section 508 Best Practices.  Sponsored by the Accessibility Committee of the Chief Information Officers Council (CIOC), the U.S. Access Board and eFedLink,  the event will convene Tuesday, July 29, 2014 at 1:00pm ET. This will be one webinar in a series that will address wireless technology accessibility barriers, accessibility resources, and 508 standards as they apply to wireless technology.

July 2014 – The National Federation of the Blind (NFB) concluded their 2014 National Convention with a unanimous vote urging the Obama administration to issue Internet regulations in compliance with Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act.  More than twenty-five hundred members of the NFB adopted the resolution, noting the need for accessible website design and content that allows access to the Internet through computerized speech software or Braille conversion. President of the NFB, Dr.

June 2014 –Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman, Tom Wheeler announced a tentative agenda for July’s Open Meeting. Reports to be considered by the Commission include: Modernizing E-Rate to Deliver Digital Learning, Connect America Fund Rural Broadband Experiments, and Closed Captioning of Internet Protocol-Delivered Video Clips. Regarding the latter, the FCC has planned a vote to determine if online video clips will be included in closed captioning mandates.  The meeting is scheduled for Friday, July 11, 2014 at 10:30a.m. EDT.

June 2014 – Federal Communications Commissioner, Tom Wheeler, presented the 3^rd Annual Awards for Advancement in Accessibility (Chairman’s AAA) at the 2014 M-Enabling Summit in Arlington, Virginia. These are honorary awards given to innovators that develop communication technologies for people with disabilities. The Chairman’s AAA falls under the FCC’s Accessibility and Innovation Initiative and is awarded to both the private and public sector.

June 2014 – For the first time, the Federal Communications Commission has launched a service they are calling the “ASL Consumer Support Line.” This video-based support line will engage deaf and hard of hearing consumers who communicate through American Sign Language (ASL). Prior to this, the deaf and hard of hearing community was only able to communicate via relay services or through a complaint form that could be filed online.