Remarks by Joan Durocher
Senior Attorney/Advisor
National Council on Disability

Digital Television Consumer Education Workshop
Federal Communications Commission
February 28, 2008
445 12th Street, SW
Washington, DC 
Commission Meeting Room

Good morning, my name is Joan Durocher and I'm a senior staff attorney at the National Council on Disability.  Thank you for inviting NCD to be here today.  NCD is an independent federal agency, composed of 15 members appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. 

NCD’s purpose is to promote policies and practices that guarantee equal opportunity for all individuals with disabilities, regardless of the nature or severity of the disability, and to empower individuals with disabilities to achieve economic self-sufficiency, independent living, and integration into all aspects of society.

NCD commends the Federal Communications Commission for holding this workshop, and the workshop held on consumers in rural areas and on tribal lands in January. It is outreach of this type that is most likely to reach consumers with disabilities.  However, NCD strongly encourages the FCC to hold these workshops in those parts of the country that will benefit the most, including in tribal and rural communities.  Internet access and transportation are often an issue for people with disabilities and those that will be most affected by this transition are those who are the most likely not to have Internet access or to travel to the FCC.  It is most important to take this outreach to the community itself – and the outreach has to be in an accessible format.  For example, it is vitally important to provide sign language interpreters at any public forum that purports to reach the disability community.

The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights estimates that 21 million American households, including vulnerable populations such as low-income families, minorities, seniors and people with disabilities may see their TV sets go dark in 2009.

As you know, this will affect their ability to access news information and emergency warnings.  LCCR also estimates that one third or more of over the air a television viewers have disabilities, which means we are already disproportionately affected by this transition and it could exacerbate an already existing digital divide if the millions of households that rely on over-the-air TV lose their service because they don't know about the switch or the coupon program, or are unable to get coupons. 

NCD spoke to digital television transition issues in its 2006 paper calling for federal legislation and regulation prohibiting telecommunications and information services discrimination. 

In NCD's paper, we expressed our concern about the digital television transition and its impact on people with disabilities. We noted that at any step along the journey, disability access (whether provided through captioning, video descriptions or accessible interfaces) could be compromised if accessibility protections are not in place.  

Concerns have already been raised with respect to the set-top boxes that will be used to convert digital signals to analog television transmissions.  In order to make the transition to digital television affordable for all Americans, the Digital Television Transition and Public Safety Act of 2005 has authorized the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to establish a program by which eligible consumers could receive coupons to partially defray the cost of acquiring converter boxes.

Although rules proposed by NTIA to govern the certification of these boxes already include a proposal for the boxes to be capable of complying with the FCC’s closed captioning mandates, concerns remain as to whether these boxes will also provide accessible interfaces, the ability to pass through video descriptions, and have other accessibility features needed for full access to video programming.

Other issues include:

• technical difficulties associated with pass through of closed captioning
• confusion over the scope of the FCC's captioning regulations
• inability to locate and activate accessibility features through remote controls or menus
• barriers to resolving concerns with TV stations, cable companies, and other video programming providers; and
• concerns about pass through of video description for people with vision loss

Any outreach to the disability community, particularly the deaf and hard of hearing community and the visually-impaired and blind community, should include the ways that the FCC is working on addressing these technical issues to ensure that no one is left behind in the transition.  And again, the FCC must also ensure that outreach is conducted in accessible formats.  For example, informational websites need to be screen-reader accessible.  Audio webcasts need to be open-captioned.

There needs to be a lot of communication by and between distributors of television programming, television equipment manufacturers and distributors, and consumers with disabilities. 

NCD has spoken to outreach challenges in several of our reports and during the past two decades NCD has led some efforts deliberately involving input by diverse stakeholders and made recommendations related to making public service more accessible to all citizens. 

We have conducted hearings, roundtables, forums, and public comment sessions around the country to get direct input on a wealth of topics, policy, and issues affecting the lives of people with disabilities - it is so important to tap into local community organizations that focus on the specific issues of diverse disability groups in this way. For example, there's a community organization in New Mexico called "Community Outreach Program for the Deaf": http://copdnm.org/index.php If at least one person at each of these small community organizations is given in-depth instruction on the transition, then they can turn around and inform their consumer members about it in a much more helpful way.

Thank you for inviting NCD to be a part of this important event.  We look forward to working with the FCC to further its outreach goals.