Residential wireline telephones are the “plain vanilla” of customer premises equipment for voice communications.
The generic design of a residential wireline telephone includes a base with a 12-key keypad laid out in 4 rows and 3 columns; no additional controls; no visual display; a handset attached to the base unit by a cord. Ringers may be electronic rather than electromechanical, and may have volume settings.
Residential wireline telephones are covered by the Hearing Aid Compatibility Act and subsequent FCC rules. See Guidelines 1193.43(e) and 1193.43(i) for more details.
Some people with speech impairment use communication aids, such as speech synthesizers.
Although satisfaction with voice telephony of people who use communication
aids is lower than that for fax or email, it is still their highest preference,
largely because it is so ubiquitous. Most
of these users needed assistance with some part of the call (Simpson/UCPA, 1997).
Many of these users find it difficult or impossible to connect the audio output of their communication aids to a telephone. The typical solution is to place the output speaker near a speakerphone. This eliminates privacy.
No Guidelines cover the connection of communication aid audio output to CPE. See Recommendation C5.
Digital service is now available for residential customers. A digital line cannot connect directly with a TTY, although TTYs with acoustic couplers can still connect through their acoustic couplers. Several products are available to connect analog equipment (such as fax machines) to a digital line. TTYs can work only with these digital-to-analog adapters, as it is neither safe nor effective to connect an analog TTY directly to a digital line, even if the connectors match.
Some phones have big and/or “soft” buttons, which may be useful to people with difficulty reaching, targeting, or pressing smaller or stiffer buttons
A user with a manipulation impairment:
“I use a [company name] big button phone and have had no problems with
it. I can press all the buttons
on it as long as it is tilted up on my desk.”
Some phones include additional features, such as speed dialing or voice dialing.
Those features may benefit some people with cognitive or mobility/manipulation
impairments. More detail can be
found in the section on Adjuncts.
1193.41(a) Operable without vision.
1193.41(c) Operable with little or no color perception.
1193.41(g) Operable without time-dependent controls (except those imposed by switch software – see the section on Network Equipment.)
1193.41(h) Operable without speech.
1193.41(i) Operable with limited cognitive skills.*
1193.43(h) Non-interference with hearing technologies.
1193.43(i) Hearing aid coupling [by HAC Order].
1193.51(c) Compatibility with prosthetics.
1193.51(e) TTY signal compatibility (except digital lines -- see above)
* The generic wireline telephone has a simple physical layout and no menus or cognitive requirements beyond digit dialing. This makes it easier to use for some people with cognitive impairments than other products with complicated layouts and operations. However, even the simplest wireline phone requires memory and other cognitive skills. Cognitive limitations are not well described or categorized in the different ways they affect telecommunications. See Recommendation C4. We included this Guideline as generically addressed by this and other Product Types because it does address it for some people with cognitive limitations, although not for all.