Linda Vandeloop
Half a Century Later – An Alternative to Teletypewriter (TTY)
AT&T is pleased to announce the launch of a new service – Real-time Text (RTT) – that replaces teletypewriter (TTY) and brings communications for people with hearing loss and speech disabilities into the 21st Century. RTT is a text-based communication service that alleviates many of TTY’s short comings. TTY requires turn taking, allows for the use of only a small set of device-generated characters, and is very slow. With RTT, each text character is transmitted and received in near real time, allowing for a conversational flow of communication, simultaneously with voice.