Centralized Captioned Telephone Service Routing
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Hearing-impaired individuals face limitations in communication due to the need for multiple phone numbers and separate devices for captioned telephone services, leading to cumbersome call processes and inefficiencies, especially with the rise of mobile communication devices, where existing network infrastructure may not support specialized captioning services without extensive resource allocation.
Innovation Solution
A centralized captioned telephone service system that uses a single phone number for both users and peers, allowing seamless communication through existing mobile network infrastructure, with a database to manage call routing and support multiple caption providers, eliminating the need for separate TRS numbers and hardware, and enabling easy switching between providers without network overhauls.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a specialized captioned telephone with a separate phone number is used, then captioning service functionality is provided, but the user must manage multiple phone numbers and devices
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines the captioning service functionality with the user's existing mobile phone by integrating a captioning application that uses the device's camera and microphone. This merging eliminates the need for a separate captioned telephone device and its dedicated phone number, allowing users to access captioning services through their primary communication device.
Solution Approach 2:
The mobile phone is transformed into a multi-functional device that serves both as a regular communication tool and as a captioning service terminal. The captioning application enables the phone to perform multiple functions: capturing video/audio, processing captions, displaying text, and maintaining regular phone functionality, thereby eliminating the need for specialized hardware.
2Ease of operation
If text-oriented services are used for hearing-impaired users, then communication is facilitated, but nuance and expressive content are lost
Solution Approach 1:
The communication process is segmented into multiple parallel channels: audio transmission for hearing peers and visual caption transmission for hearing-impaired users. The system simultaneously provides both audio and text representations of the conversation, allowing hearing-impaired users to access both the literal content and the expressive nuances through visual cues in the captions.
Solution Approach 2:
The mobile phone acts as an intermediary device that captures audio from the conversation, processes it through the captioning application, and displays visual representations. This intermediary function preserves the original audio content while creating an accessible visual representation, maintaining both the informational and expressive elements of communication.
3Loss of energy
If mobile network infrastructure is used for captioning services, then resource allocation is reduced, but specialized captioning data handling is not supported
Solution Approach 1:
The captioning service operates in a self-service manner where the user's mobile device performs local processing of video and audio capture, caption generation, and display. The network infrastructure only needs to provide basic data transmission capabilities, while the complex captioning functions are handled locally by the user's device, minimizing network resource requirements.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the operational parameters of the mobile network from handling specialized captioning data to handling standard mobile data traffic. By processing captioning functions through a mobile application rather than network infrastructure, the system leverages existing network capabilities and avoids requiring specialized network configuration or resource allocation.
Data Source
AI summary
A system for centralized captioned telephone service (“C-CTS”), which includes a C-CTS system (“C-CTSS”) for providing a transcription service to a user subscribed to the C-CTS during a phone call with a peer; a mobile communications device of the user which includes a first phone number assigned from a carrier of the user; a communications device of the peer which includes a second phone number; and a plurality of caption providers that communicate with the C-CTSS. The first phone number is associated with the C-CTSS and each of the caption providers provides a captioned telephone service. A carrier of the first phone number includes a voice network, a data network, and a database that stores the first phone number of the user which is subscribed to the C-CTS. The C-CTSS includes a database that stores the first phone number of the user.