[Electronics-talk] Issues with Cox remote top boxes

Tue Jan 24 23:50:26 UTC 2012

Thanks!
I couldn't remember what it was called.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <GeorTsoukala at aol.com>
To: <electronics-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2012 5:44 PM
Subject: Re: [Electronics-talk] Issues with Cox remote top boxes

It is the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act.
I have copied an article below.
 George

    AccessWorld ®
Technology and People Who Are  Blind or Visually Impaired

January 2012 Issue  Volume 13  Number  1

>From AFB's Policy  Center
The Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act:
Highlights of a New Landmark Communications Law
Mark Richert

If you would have told me a decade ago that one day there would be a law
requiring virtually all text communication, mobile phone Web browsers, TVs,
and  broadcast emergency alerts to be fully accessible to people who are
blind or  visually impaired, I would likely have told you to keep dreaming. 
But
if you  also told me that this same legislation would be stronger than any
communications law for people with disabilities previously enacted, that it
would result in more than 60 hours a week of described video programming,
and,  amazingly, that it would permanently make up to $10 million per year
available  to put expensive communications equipment in the hands of people
who are  deaf-blind, I might have told you that you have a rich, albeit 
nerdy,
fantasy  life.

As incredible as it sounds, such legislation is now the law of the land,
thanks to the passage of the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video
Accessibility Act, or CVAA. While readers of AccessWorld are no doubt some 
of
 the more savvy and connected folks who follow developments in technology
policy,  this brief rundown of what the CVAA does was written to provide a
better  understanding of the changes people who are blind or visually 
impaired
can and  should expect from the communications, consumer electronics, and
video  programming industries.

Communications
Long before the CVAA became law, telecommunications  equipment
manufacturers and service providers had some limited responsibilities  for 
ensuring that
people with disabilities could independently make phone calls  and use both
traditional and mobile phone technologies. Under these  long-standing
rules, the equipment and services provided need only be accessible  when 
doing so
doesn't require a company to invest much money or effort to make  it
happen. What's more, with some exceptions-such as caller ID and address book
functions-the old rules were limited to phone call accessibility. The many
common functions people use their phones for today, such as text messaging,
email, and browsing the Internet, were not covered. That's where the CVAA 
comes
 in. Now, companies that make communications equipment or offer related
services  must make advanced functions such as electronic messaging 
accessible
unless it's  simply not possible to do so. In effect, the CVAA raises the
bar considerably in  terms of what companies are expected to do for
communications accessibility, and  goes a long way to clarify accessibility 
standards
and responsibilities.

Any time a member of Congress talks about regulating something related to
the Internet, people get skittish. So when access advocates made it clear
that  full accessibility, including Internet accessibility, was required if
people  with vision impairment were to have full use of the devices and
services they  pay for, both industry and Congress got a bit nervous.
Nevertheless, advocates  insisted that any law lauding itself as a 
twenty-first century
accessibility law  had to deal with the Internet. As a result, the CVAA does
cover Internet access,  but in a bit of a limited way. The CVAA states that
whenever electronic  messaging is offered-whether it's on a mobile phone, a
desk phone, a desktop  computer, or some other device-it must be accessible
to people with  disabilities. In the case of Internet browsing, however,
the law is a bit  narrower. Only the browsers on mobile phones need to be
accessible, and the  CVAA, rather unusually and disappointingly, limits this
accessibility  requirement to those who are blind or visually impaired. 
Those
with other  disabilities are not covered.

Though the electronic messaging and Internet browser access requirements
are already considered to be in effect, noncompliance complaints will not be
heard by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) until October 2013.
Why  this strange timeline? The law was signed by President Obama on October
8, 2010,  and the FCC was required to issue regulations implementing the new
law one year  from that date. As part of the process for developing those
rules, the FCC heard  from industry that at least a two-year transition 
period
would be required to  adequately prepare for the new mandates. The
accessibility community raised  strong objections to the two-year delay, so 
the FCC
compromised by requiring  that the new access obligations begin immediately,
but that complaints about  noncompliance won't be entertained until the
two-year window has passed. So,  starting in October of 2013, a complaint 
can
be filed with the FCC concerning  equipment or service inaccessibility
experienced at any time, including  retroactive complaints dating back to 
the
start of the law's implementation. In  other words, if you buy a mobile 
phone in
2012 that doesn't offer you accessible  text messaging or e-mail
functionality, you can complain to the FCC about it-in  October of 2013. In 
any event,
once the complaint is filed, the FCC will work  with you to resolve the
complaint with the company. If the complaint is not  resolved, the FCC will
make a final determination-which could involve anything  from a finding that
your complaint is without merit or that the company violated  the
accessibility law-within six months. If a company is found to have violated 
the CVAA,
it may be liable for financial penalties (payable to the United  States),
and/or maybe required to a change in behavior on the company's part to 
ensure
accessibility going forward. The FCC is also empowered to make the  consumer
whole, meaning that complaint resolution should include putting an
accessible phone in the hand of the consumer at no additional cost, even if 
the
accessible phone is a higher priced, more feature-rich device.

Video Programming
As exciting as the CVAA communications requirements  are in terms of their
potential to revolutionize our personal and workplace  inclusion and
competitiveness, the CVAA video programming provisions are sure to  be among 
the
new law's most popular features. First and foremost is the CVAA  unambiguous
requirement that greatly increases the availability of video  description of
prime-time and children's programming. While PBS has offered  described
programming for years and a couple national broadcast networks have 
described a
few programs here and there, the commercial broadcasting, cable, and
motion picture industries have fought tooth and nail to prevent video
description from becoming a right of the blind and visually impaired 
television
audience. The CVAA unambiguously establishes that the four national 
broadcast
networks, ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox, as well as the top-ranked channels' USA, 
the
 Disney Channel, TNT, Nickelodeon, and TBS, must describe at least 50 hours
of  their prime-time and/or children's programming during each calendar
quarter.  That's an average of at least four hours per week.

These new video description regulations make a bit of a distinction between
 the obligation of the CVAA-covered networks to provide description and the
 obligations of your local station or rural cable company to pass that
description on to you. There are some protections in the CVAA for small 
cable
providers and for local stations that would experience a serious
technological  and/or financial burden in order to provide the service. That 
said,
since  passing through description shouldn't be a big technical or financial
deal for  almost every station and cable provider in America, we should 
assume
that  description will be very widely available.

So, beginning next July, what do you do if your favorite show isn't being
described or you can't seem to get your hands on a description? You of
course  can contact your local station or cable provider and ask them how to
receive  their pass-through of the described programming. You can also 
contact
the  national networks to request that a given program be described. If your
local  station or cable provider tells you that they do not pass description
through or  that they don't know how to make it happen for you, you can
lodge a complaint  with the FCC. While the station or cable provider might
reply that they don't  have to guarantee description and/or that passing
description through would  constitute prohibitive cost, the FCC needs to 
determine
whether either of those  claims is true. As a side note: the disability
community asked the FCC to set  parameters for stations and cable providers 
who
might claim that getting  technically up to speed to pass description
through would require more than a  modest cost, and the FCC declined.

A related issue is how to tune into a program if our TV and/or cable box or
 satellite equipment is itself inaccessible. The CVAA states that digital
TVs and  other devices that receive and play broadcast and cable programming
must have  controls that allow people with vision loss to use all
programming-relevant  menus, to scan channels, to easily turn on description 
for
programs offering it,  and to manipulate any and all features related to 
these
functions. Gone will be  the days when simply using the volume control
requires sighted assistance.

As always, there are a few provisos. While equipment like digital TVs will
have to provide accessible controls and menus out of the box, cable and
satellite providers need only make their equipment accessible upon the 
request
 of a customer. Why the difference? Well, some tech experts have pointed
out that  the set-top box's days are numbered in terms of being the primary
way for cable  and satellite companies to securely deliver their 
programming,
so including them  in the law would be legislating a dying technology.
Regardless, whether access  is built into the device or provided upon 
request,
it's clearly required by the  CVAA. Implementation of this requirement is
still being defined, but will  certainly take place over multiple years. AFB 
is
playing a leadership role in  this process, joining industry and advocates
to set the direction the FCC will  follow in issuing the next major set of
regulations to make all this possible.  It's a slow process, but in the end 
it
will result in substantial improvements  to accessibility.

Other Key Benefits of the CVAA
As mentioned earlier, the CVAA will break  down enormous barriers for those
of us who are deaf-blind by establishing, for  the first time, a clear and
substantial source of funding for the often  incredibly expensive equipment
needed to communicate interpersonally and via the  telephone or the
Internet. This $10-million program, administered by the FCC  through an 
array of
agreements with organizations and consortia from around the  country, will
provide both equipment and training in the use of equipment.  Methods for
procuring equipment and receiving training will depend on location.  As of 
this
writing, the FCC is still setting up various agreements with regional
organizations and agencies, but the bottom line is that the CVAA will fill a 
huge
gap by creating a reliable resource pipeline.

The CVAA also fills a gap in the way emergency information is broadcast to
those of us who can't see on-screen text. The status quo simply alerts the
viewer with vision loss about emergency information through a simple tone.
The  CVAA says that the FCC will establish more meaningful ways for viewers
with  vision loss to access emergency information, particularly through
audible  messages containing the text of the displayed emergency alert. AFB 
is
leading  advocacy efforts as the FCC hammers out the specifics of this
element of the  law.

Future Issues
Of course no single law can anticipate every contingency  or address every
problem-particularly a law concerned with communications  accessibility-but
the CVAA does tackle a wide array of barriers to access.  Devices that
aren't yet covered by the CVAA but that will clearly need to be  addressed 
in the
future include:

Hand-held gaming devices that also allow users to text each other.
TVs  that connect to the Internet and allow phone calls.
The increasing number of  devices that can connect to the Internet but are
not within the communications  and entertainment realm, such as the kitchen
appliance or the thermostat that  can be manipulated from the cloud.
With respect to multi-function devices,  like the gaming device that also
offers text messaging, the CVAA regulations  state that the FCC will look
both to the way a device is designed and how the  device is marketed to
determine what the primary purpose of a given device  really is. If that 
primary
purpose is not a communications function covered by  the CVAA, the device 
need
not be accessible. So, does the gaming device that  offers text messaging
need to be accessible? If the device is designed to allow  the user to send
and receive text messages between individuals and is at all  marketed for 
its
ability to do so, it should be covered by the CVAA. That said,  the CVAA
allows industry to petition the FCC for a waiver of coverage for
mixed-function devices that they argue have a primary purpose other than 
CVAA-covered
communication. We'll have to watch for any such petitions and  respond
accordingly. We also need to do a much better job in our community with 
complaint
generation and follow-through. While it's true that the FCC doesn't  have a
very good track record of aggressive enforcement of communications
accessibility laws, it's equally true that the disability community has 
generated
precious few complaints to hold industry accountable for the uniformly  bad
job it has done to make traditional and mobile phones accessible. If the
vast array of new expectations created by the CVAA are going to have any
meaning, individual consumers must refuse to put up with unusable technology 
and
 be willing to make their voices heard through the complaint process.
Remember  that if you think that a device you're using is noncompliant, and
you're willing  to take action, AFB stands ready to help as you navigate 
your way
through the  complaint process.

Comment on This Article

In a message dated 1/24/2012 6:15:16 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
dewey.bradley at kc.rr.com writes:

Do you  know what bill it is, I couldn't find it, I wasn't aware that it
had
passed

----- Original Message ----- 
From:  <GeorTsoukala at aol.com>
To:  <electronics-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2012 5:08  PM
Subject: Re: [Electronics-talk] Issues with Cox remote top  boxes

>I believe it was part of the law that passed in  2012.
>
>
>
> In a message dated 1/24/2012 3:18:12  P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
> dewey.bradley at kc.rr.com  writes:
>
> Isn't  there a bill in congress to require  companies to make that stuff
> accessible?
>
> -----  Original Message ----- 
> From: "Julie  Phillipson"  <jbrew48 at verizon.net>
> To: "Tony Sohl"   <tonysohl at cox.net>; "Discussion of accessible
electronics
>  and  appliances" <electronics-talk at nfbnet.org>
> Sent:  Tuesday, January 24,  2012 2:04 PM
> Subject: Re:  [Electronics-talk] Issues with Cox remote top   boxes
>
>
>>a few years ago there was some articles I  think in the  monitor but it
may
>>have been from access world  or could have been  both.  It compared a few
>>models as to  which were the easier ones  to use.
>>
>>
>>  Julie Phillipson
>> ----- Original  Message ----- 
>>  From: "Tony Sohl" <tonysohl at cox.net>
>> To:   <Electronics-talk at nfbnet.org>
>> Sent: Tuesday, January 24,  2012  1:40 PM
>> Subject: [Electronics-talk] Issues with Cox  remote top  boxes
>>
>>
>>> Hi I was  wondering are there any accessible  cable boxes on the market
>  or
>>> any way I can access the menus such  as turning on the  second audio
>>> program for DVS? If anyone has  some  suggestions, then let me know.
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>>
>>
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>
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