FCC to enforce 50% hearing-aid mandate beginning next year: iPhone gains controversial exemption

While mobile-phone carriers and manufacturers face a key hearing-aid compatibility deadline in early 2008, Apple’s Inc. wildly popular iPhone will get a pass on a major government disability access mandate that wireless companies already have spent significant resources to meet.
The situation does not sit well with the Hearing Loss Association of America, which alleged in an informal complaint that the iPhone is not hearing-aid compatible.
“There were high expectations from Apple as an innovator of cool technology and because of their past record with screen readers. There was all the secrecy and hype [in the lead up to the iPhone launch]. So there was disappointment when it was released and found to be inaccessible to people with vision and hearing loss,” said Brenda Battat, associate executive director of HLAA and a driving force since the mid-1990s to get cellphones covered by the Hearing Aid Compatibility Act of 1988 and disability access requirements of the 1996 telecom act. The FCC finally agreed to require mobile phone hearing-aid compatibility in 2003. “I am sure there was a rush to market and I do not believe that it was initially designed to be compatible with hearing aids. Maybe some in-house testing was done along the way and it was found not to meet FCC [interference-based compatibility] . but by then it was too late. Hopefully, they will take it all seriously and work on making it accessible to people with hearing aids and cochlear implants-I certainly hope so.”
In its latest ruling, the Federal Communications Commission decided to keep intact a ‘de minimis’ provision exempting service providers and carriers that offer two or fewer handsets from hearing-aid compatibility requirements.
“They claim technically they are exempt under the ‘de minimis’ exemption in the FCC regulations, but even so they want to work on accessibility,” Battat said. “I have major concerns about the ‘de minimis’ exemption, as I believe it was designed to take into account small startup companies with two or less products-certainly not the Apples of the world who decide to get into a product line they have never been in before and only have one model. This ‘de minimis’ is going to haunt us.”
The FCC said it considers Apple’s iPhone entitled to the exception.
“Apple is changing the ways people interact with technology through innovative products like the iPhone, which bring new possibilities for making user interfaces accessible to users with disabilities,” said Apple spokeswoman Susan Lundgren.
Cellphone carriers face a Feb. 18 deadline to ensure half of their handset models for each air interface comply with the hearing-aid compliance interference mitigation rule. There is a separate FCC benchmark for telecoil-coupling hearing-aid compatibility, which disability groups have decried as too timid. Preventing digital mobile phones from interfering with hearing aids has proved a far bigger challenge for GSM handsets than for CDMA devices.
The agency, drawing on recommendations from the wireless industry and the hearing disability community, plans to not enforce the Feb. 18 deadline until two months after the date. In addition, the FCC is seeking public comment on exemptions for small wireless carriers and vendors and independent retailers. Moreover, federal regulators are re-examining other key aspects for the rule as well as “how better to employ our hearing-aid compatibility regulations in the context of emerging technologies and open platforms for devices and applications.”
Despite the iPhone controversy, Battat believes the FCC and cellphone industry are serious about improving accessibility for the 6 million-plus Americans with hearing aids. “I think it [the FCC’s Nov. 7 actions] shows seriousness in keeping the momentum for [hearing-aid compatibility] to further expanding the number of choices available to consumers-and that is the direction we want to see industry going in.”
Karen Peltz Strauss, a former FCC official and a consultant who authored a comprehensive history on the long fight to bring telecom access for deaf and hard of hearing individuals, agreed. “I am pleased to see that the FCC appears interested in possibly adopting the bulk of the consensus agreement reached between the wireless industry and consumers. The agreement was the product of many months’ deliberations and revealed an unprecedented willingness of both sides to reach a compromise on these issues.”