BT, one of the leading communication service providers in the world, has today announced the launch of its ‘Next Generation Text’ service. The new service will offer greatly improved assistance to its customers with speech and hearing impairments, allowing faster, more fluent telephone conversations to be made.
The new service will be replacing BT’s existing text relay service, which Ofcom deemed in 2012 was in need of improvement.
In March this year news was released that Ofcom had approved the proposed new service and BT have been holding trials with a selection of their customers ever since. The service has received glowing reviews from the customers taking part.
One such customer, Mike Aston, who is a senior architectural technologist with Warwickshire County Council, said: “NGT has really exceeded my expectations and certainly makes life a lot easier for deaf people. It’s so flexible across all devices and you can link a single mobile or landline number to NGT apps on various devices.
“I have found TextNumbers extremely useful for the hearing to contact me without having to dial 18002 in front as before.”
TextNumber is one of the new features announced by BT, which supplies users with a number that looks like a standard phone number. When the TextNumber is dialled the call is automatically connected to the Next Generation Text service without the need for the caller to dial a special prefix first.
The new service also includes a free app compatible with Android and Apple devices, and personal computers, enabling customers to use the service without the need to purchase a specialised device.
The launch of this improved service by a leading communication provider is an encouraging step towards improving the standards of communication with deaf people in the UK
Customers can also find more information about the ‘Next Generation Text’ service at www.ngts.org.uk.
