Telecoms
Legislation/regulations
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) is the national regulator of telecommunications. The CRTC has issued a set of decisions that impose accessibility requirements on telecommunications service providers in areas such as text relay services, directory assistance and accessibility features of public payphones. These decisions are legislated for in the Telecommunications Act 1993 which provides that no telecommunications service provider should discriminate against anyone in the provision of services. The Act also sets out policy objectives that include rendering reliable and affordable telecommunications services of high quality accessible to Canadians in all regions of Canada as well as responding to the economic and social requirements of users of telecommunications services.
In 2006 the CRTC published a decision on the “Disposition of funds in the deferral accounts” which sets out that telecommunications companies are required to use reserved money towards funding eAccessibility improvements. It is not clear what impact this decision has had to date.
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We are interested in receiving any corrections and/or additional information that may help us to update or improve our understanding of the current state of affairs in this country concerning the accessibility of telecoms equipment and services. This may concern information on relevant legislation, other policies and/or the level of accessibility actually achieved. Please enter your contribution in the “Leave a Reply” box below or send an e-mail to meac at empirica dot com.
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