2006 INCOM report

Still major gaps for disabled users in telecommunication legislation.

the national provisions do not – or seldom – address specifically disabled users’ needs

Disabled users of telecommunications services in Europe continue to be penalised in relation to availability, choice, quality and price. This is the main finding of the INCOM final report on the implementation in the Member States of the provisions related to disabled users in the Telecommunications Legislative Package. Very often, there is a clear lack of information in the Member States on the practical situation for disabled users and of the problems they are confronted with in everyday life. As a consequence, the national provisions do not – or seldom – address specifically disabled users’ needs.

The committee particularly highlighted: there is still no comprehensive solution in all Member States for disabled users to call the single European emergency number 112; the accessibility to public pay phones is not addressed in a harmonised way, and text telephones used by deaf users are not interoperable across Member States or across networks. The INCOM group has therefore made a number of recommendations to the European Commission, including that need to examine the possibility to strengthen some articles of the related Directives, in the course of the 2006 review of the regulatory framework.

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Following the adoption of the regulatory package in July 2002, INCOM decided in January 2004 to undertake a report in order to analyse and identify the constraints and problems users with disabilities face in accessing and using electronic communications as well as potential problems and opportunities in new and future technologies applications. In making this report, INCOM concluded that disabled users encountered serious problems in relation to access to telecommunication services; access to broadcasting, digital television and related services and potential access problems to emerging technologies. In relation to access to telecommunication services the INCOM report identified the following as being the most problematic:
- Access to emergency services;
- Access to telephone services for persons with deafness/severe hearing/ impairment/speech impairment/deaf-blindness;
- Access to public pay phones;
- Access to directory services; and
- Access to mobile phones.
Please find the full text of the 2004 INCOM report