Carriers Need Two Years to Address Hearing Aid Compatibility Rule Change, CTIA says.
CTIA urged the FCC to allow a 24-month transition period if it changes its hearing aid compatibility (HAC) rules to incorporate the 2011 revision of American National Standards Institute (ANSI) technical standard C63.19. The revision would replace the 2007 version of the standard now part of the rules. Groups representing the deaf and hard of hearing said a year is time enough. In a Nov. 1 notice of proposed rulemaking (http://xrl.us/bmozvb) the Wireless Bureau and Office of Engineering and Technology proposed giving Tier 1 carriers a year to meet the revised standard and smaller carriers 15 months.
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"While ... CTIA is optimistic that adoption of the 2011 ANSI HAC Standard will not cause significant new or additional costs beyond existing costs to comply with the Commission’s HAC rules, manufacturers and service providers will need a reasonable opportunity to integrate the new standard into typical product development, testing, certification and deployment cycles,” CTIA said (http://xrl.us/bmoy93). The FCC should also “expressly state” that handsets certified under the 2007 standard don’t need to be recertified and that these handsets will still count toward meeting HAC requirements, the group said. CTIA said the HAC rules have been a success, with 572 devices available last year that met various standards, compared to 170 five years earlier.
The Telecommunications Industry Association also supported the change proposed by the FCC, but only with “an appropriate phase-in period that reflects technological realities.” TIA said in its comments (http://xrl.us/bmozzb) the FCC should “incorporate technical feasibility and reasonableness principles into its decisions in this matter.”
But the Hearing Industries Association (http://xrl.us/bmoy6q) said a one year transition period is “ample” time for the industry to get up to speed (http://xrl.us/bmoy6q). “There is no reason for hearing aid users not to have access to handsets tested under the new standard within a year,” the group said. “Adoption of the 2011 Standard is not a full-scale overhaul of the existing regime but rather a timely evolution that is explicitly anticipated in the Commission’s current rules.” The association said carriers should have to make full disclosure on the capabilities of HAC handsets, especially during the transition period. “A multi-operation phone that is, for example, advertised as ‘4G’ as well as ‘HAC'-- but that is not in fact HAC for its 4G operations -- raises not only disabilities access issues but also truth in advertising issues."
The FCC’s proposed timetable provides time enough for carriers to adapt, said a coalition of groups representing people with hearing loss, led by the Hearing Loss Association of America. “We believe the changes in the standard are not dramatic in their final effect and that manufacturers and carriers have had sufficient time to anticipate any possible effects of the new standard,” they said (http://xrl.us/bmoz2e). “While we would prefer an even tighter schedule, we understand the proposed timetable may be needed for manufacturers and carriers to make the transition.”