Stevemoore,
As one of the sitemembers listed below, there a few other sites out
there. However, at this time, there are still not many IP Relay
internet providers.
Other than the two you listed, these are the other two that are
available right now are:
MCI
http://www.ip-relay.com/index.htm
Hamilton
http://www.hiprelay.com/
The reason for this being that the costs for IP Relay are quite high.
Just in the last year or two, has the FCC approved reimbursement to
those companies who have been footing the bill to provide the service
free to deaf persons. Now that reimbursement has been approved, I'm
sure more and more providers will be popping up in the years to come.
"One of the really exciting developments in the last couple of years
has been IP Relay. This is a system that allows people to access the
relay using their computer over the internet, rather than with a TTY.
While the advantages are clear, it was never clear how to pay for the
service, and some of the companies that provide relay services have
provided IP relay at their cost.
The FCC has now announced that these providers are eligible for
reimbursement. There are still some details to work out, but I think
IP Relay is now a large step closer to becoming freely available.
Here's the announcement from the FCC."
Taken from: http://www.hearinglossweb.com/res/gov/stlcl/relay/relay.htm
So, there you have it. A few other places you can get IP Relay, and
why it's not more widely available yet. I'm glad Corwin02 went the
extra step as a site member and started us off with a few places, and
I'm glad I could explain why those are the only other 2 readily
available.
I would also like to let you know I spoje with the deaf persons'
program at Metropolitan Community College as well, as they are known
in my area for having a great deaf studies program, and they had told
me the 2 you mentioned, plus the 2 I mentioned had been the only ones
they had been able to locate and reccomend to their students as well.
If this answer requires further explanation, please request
clarification before rating it, and I'll be happy to look into this
further.
Nenna-GA
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