A Giant Leap & A Big Deal: Delivering on the Promise of Equal Access to Broadband for People with Disabilities

With broadband technologies, we have the opportunity to consider accessibility issues relatively early in the deployment process and ensure that people with disabilities share fully in the benefits of broadband. Even more, broadband "bridge[s] gaps and provide[s] opportunities that were inconceivable in the past. We cannot realize the full potential of broadband, however, unless we fully consider the needs of people with disabilities. As a threshold matter, for example, broadband needs to be defined in a way that recognizes the importance of two-way video capabilities. We also must understand and address the barriers faced by people with disabilities.

This paper will first consider numerous barriers to broadband usage faced by people with disabilities, including inaccessible hardware, software, and services, and inaccessible web content. It will also identify barriers related to specialized assistive technologies that people with disabilities use to gain access to broadband services as well as barriers faced by specific populations within the disability community. Next, the paper will discuss existing private sector efforts to address these barriers, including the advances made by industry innovation and collaborative efforts. It examines how government grant programs and legal and regulatory measures address these barriers as well.

After identifying existing barriers and efforts, this paper next considers the gaps in current efforts to address accessibility for people with disabilities and the needs that must be met if we are to accelerate the adoption path for people with disabilities. Specifically, the government must:

• Improve implementation and enforcement of existing accessibility laws;
• Gather and analyze more information about disability-specific broadband adoption issues;
• Coordinate accessibility policy and spending priorities;
• Update accessibility regulations;
• Update subsidy programs and ensure the availability of training and support; and
• Update its approach to accessibility problem solving.

Finally, this paper reviews the three broad recommendations from the National Broadband Plan which seek to address the range of disability access concerns and discusses how the recommendations address the needs identified above. The recommendations include: (1) the creation of a Broadband Accessibility Working Group ("BAWG") within the Executive Branch; (2) the establishment of an Accessibility and Innovation Forum at the FCC; and (3) the modernization of accessibility laws, rules, and related subsidy programs by the FCC, the Department of Justice ("DOJ"), and Congress.