Subject: Re: [rtcweb] Real-time text implementation

From: Mark Rejhon <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2012 16:58:14 -0500

On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 4:03 PM, Roman Shpount <[email-masked]> wrote:
> Out of curiosity what commercially available phones/terminals/clients
> currently support real time text apart from Real Jabber? What protocols do
> they currently support?
> _____________
> Roman Shpount

Several examples:

-- There is a Real-Time IM feature found in AOL Instant Messenger.
A great collaboration with Gallaudet University, but poorly marketed
(unadvertised feature) and proprietary.
http://tap.gallaudet.edu/text/aol/

-- A component within Total Conversation, used by Reach112 in Europe,
a currently-operating accessible emergency service with real-time text.
http://www.reach112.eu

-- Relay services for the deaf, and caption telephone providers
http://www.i711.com  -- http://www.relaycall.com --
http://www.sprintrelayonline.com -- http://www.sprintcaptel.com -- etc.
(dozens of URL's, depending on country.)
(WebRTC would have massive benefit for these.)

-- Text telephones, aka TDD, TTY, textphones, etc.
Terminal devices used by the deaf, are legacy real-time text devices.
They are less popular now, as more now use messaging, even at the
loss of real-time-ness.

There are others, but the above are the most common.
Some use standard RTT protocols, and some use proprietary RTT
protocols.

You will observe that it is currently mostly accessible applications.
at the moment. However, there's also mainstream interest, since several
parties have expressed interest in XEP-0301 once it gets more
finalized, with its status upgraded.  Some love it, some don't like
it, but the same is said for audio or video -- and I've noticed among
my testing audience (once educated on the feature, such as via
explanations from http://www.fasttext.org ) -- RTT became a more
popular feature than video; it's got more useful mainstream use cases.
Yet it also simultaneously provides accessible communication.
So it can gradually be adopted by mainstream instant messengers over
the long term (the question is: a few years, a decade, etc?).   XEP-0301
is the world's first open real-time text standard designed for seamless
instant messaging integration; making it possible to be a mainstream
feature; so I expect as status gets upgraded and actual mainstream app
vendors implement it in at least a couple (then the "me-too's" follows)
within a decade, it's going to gradually catch attention of regulators.
(It already has -- U.S. Access Board is asking me when the
status of XEP-0301 is being upgraded.)

Mark Rejhon