Consumer Cellular brings free voice transcription to deaf callers

Consumer Cellular, if you're not already familiar with it, is a relatively small nationwide carrier that provides low-cost service options and discounts to senior citizens. In keeping with their target demographic, Consumer Cellular is offering a voice-to-text transcription service, called Mobile Captions Service, to deaf and hard-of-hearing customers.

Although speech-to-text has made leaps and bounds, it still pales in comparison to a human transcriber. The interface of the Mobile Captions Service is pretty seamless. When you make a call, you connect with a relay service center, where a Communication Assistant then transcribes what the other party is saying onto your screen. The other party will still hear your voice normally. This is a modification of the home-phone service, which uses the same real time transcription.

The service is free, where it is available. Oddly enough, the service is only available on the Nokia E5, so it does end up costing you if you have to upgrade your handset. Users can also modify the size of the font. Senior citizens, for example, might need a little help on both the audio and visual aspects of their mobile device.

The advent of text messaging was great for deaf persons, who could finally communicate without depending on an operator. Mobile Captions Service, on the other hand, seems like less of a revolutionary step. It is still commendable that Consumer Cellular is offering the service for free.

source: Consumer Cellular via Engadget