National Relay Service Performance Report
2007–08
© Commonwealth of Australia 2009
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process without prior written permission from the Commonwealth. Requests and inquiries concerning reproduction and rights should be addressed to the Manager, Communications and Publishing, Australian Communications and Media Authority, PO Box 13112 Law Courts, Melbourne VIC 8010.
Published by the Australian Communications and Media Authority
ISSN 1833-0754
Senator the Hon. Stephen Conroy
Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
Dear Minister
I am pleased to provide you with the Australian Communications and Media Authority’s (ACMA) annual report on the performance of the National Relay Service (NRS) providers.
Subsection 97(2) of the Telecommunications (Consumer Protection and Service Standards) Act 1999 (the Act) states that, as soon as practicable after the end of each financial year, ACMA must give a written report to the Minister about the performance of the NRS providers during the financial year of the providers’ obligations under an NRS service plan.
The enclosed report on the performance of the Australian Communication Exchange Ltd and WestWood Spice Pty Ltd under the National Relay Service Plan 2007–08 fulfils this requirement.
It has again been a successful year for the scheme. The NRS providers consistently met the required performance standards during the 2007–08 reporting year. Also, there has been a small increase in the number of call minutes delivered by the service, attributable to the introduction of access via the internet.
Please note that subsection 97(3) of the Act requires you to table a copy of this report in each House of Parliament within 15 sitting days of receipt.
Yours sincerely,
Chris Chapman
Chairman
24 February 2009
Contents
Introduction
Overview of the service
What is the National Relay Service?
How does the NRS work?
Who can be contacted via the National Relay Service?
Who delivers the NRS?
What is ACMA’s role in the management of the contracts for the delivery of the NRS?
Who pays for the National Relay Service?
What is the National Relay Service Plan?
Snapshot of the National Relay Service
Call Minutes
Number of NRS users
Inbound call types
Outbound call types
Relay service performance in 2007–08
Availability and Operation of the Relay service
Service options
Call Charges and Billing
Relay Service performance standards
The National Relay Service Consumer Consultative CommitteE
Outreach service performance in 2007–08
Background
Approach to the delivery of the outreach service
Outreach Service Performance Indicators
Introduction
This report has been prepared by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) in accordance with subsection 97(2) of the Telecommunications (Consumer Protection and Service Standards) Act 1999, which requires that ACMA give a written report to the Minister on the performance of the National Relay Service (NRS) providers against the requirements of the NRS Plan as soon as practicable after the end of each financial year.
Subsection 97(3) of the Act requires the Minister to table the report in the Commonwealth Parliament within 15 sitting days of receiving it.
This report has four parts:
- an overview of the service which outlines its scope and the arrangements for its delivery
- a statistical snapshot of the service
- a review of the performance of the relay service provider against its contractual obligations and commitments in the NRS Plan
- a review of the performance of the outreach service provider against its contractual obligations and commitments in the NRS Plan.
Overview of the service
What is the National Relay Service?
The NRS is a legislated consumer protection under Part 3 of the Telecommunications (Consumer Protection and Service Standards) Act 1999. The NRS provides persons who are Deaf or who have a hearing and/or speech impairment with access to a standard telephone service on terms and in circumstances that are comparable to the access other Australians have to a standard telephone service.
The service is available 24 hours per day, seven days a week and operates as a communication bridge for Deaf, hearing-impaired and speech-impaired people in the community.
How does the NRS work?
The communication bridge provided by the NRS usually (but not always) involves a relay officer converting text communication to voice and voice communication to text to enable text and voice users to have a telephone conversation.
Text users can contact the NRS via a telephone typewriter (TTY) or via the internet. There are also options for users who can speak and wish to use their own voice to do so while being able to read the other callers’ responses in text. A description of the various call types made via the NRS is given in this report.
Who can be contacted via the National Relay Service?
Calls via the NRS can be made to anyone anywhere, although suitable billing arrangements must be in place before calls can be made to overseas and premium rate numbers. Otherwise calls within Australia can be made for the cost of contacting the NRS via its 13 or 1300 number, which is around the cost of a local call.
The NRS relay service provider is also named as an Emergency Call Person in the Telecommunications (Emergency Call Service) Determination 2002 and operates a text emergency service on the number 106.
There are a number of call options available to suit different users of the relay service. These options are described from the perspective of someone using specialist equipment such as a TTY. However, the relay service can equally be used by voice callers with a standard handset to contact someone who is Deaf or has a hearing or speech impairment.
Type and Read (also known as ‘text to voice’)
This service is for users who cannot hear and do not, or prefer not to, use their voice. The relay officer ‘becomes their voice’ and reads aloud what the user has typed to the recipient of the call, then listens to what the recipient says in reply and types it back for the user to read. Internet relay is a new form of Type and Read service option.[1]
Speak and Read (also known as ‘voice carryover’)
This service is for users who cannot hear but prefer to use their voice to speak their side of the conversation instead of typing it. They can speak directly to the person they have called via the relay service. The relay officer listens to what the recipient of the call says in reply and types it back for the user to read.
Type and Listen (also known as ‘hearing carryover’)
This service is for users who have difficulty speaking or communicating but can hear. The user types their side of the conversation and the relay officer reads it aloud to the person they have called. The user can then listen directly to the other person’s reply.
Speak and Listen (also know as ‘speech-to-speech relay’)
This service is for users who may have trouble in having their speech understood over the telephone. The relay officer, who is experienced in listening to people with speech impairments, will re-speak all or part of the conversation as required.
Who delivers the NRS?
The NRS is delivered under contract to the Australian Government by two companies, Australian Communication Exchange Ltd (ACE) and WestWood Spice (WWS). ACE is responsible for delivering the NRS relay service and WWS is responsible for delivering the NRS outreach service.
These arrangements commenced on 1 July 2006. Previously, ACE had delivered both components of the NRS.
ACE is an Australian not-for-profit company with a particular focus on the Deaf sector. Its head office and call centre are located in Brisbane.
WWS is a Sydney-based specialist consulting group with particular experience and expertise in working in the community and public sectors. With the Australian Federation of Deaf Societies and specialist social marketing consultants as subcontractors, WWS has established a national network of five information and education officers and a help desk for users, as well as undertaking various training and information activities and research studies and marketing campaigns.
What is ACMA’s role in the management of the contracts for the delivery of the NRS?
ACMA has certain legislated responsibilities for the NRS, including collection of the NRS levy, monitoring the performance of the providers and reporting to the Minister annually on this performance. Further details of these functions are set out below.
From 1 July 2006, ACMA assumed full contract management responsibilities from the (now) Department of Broadband, Community and the Digital Economy for both NRS contracts. This means that ACMA is responsible for maintaining relationships with both contractors, attending to necessary approvals under the contracts (including the approval of government branding on all NRS materials) and the development of appropriate performance standards.
Who pays for the National Relay Service?
The NRS is funded through a levy on eligible telecommunications carriers. Carriers holding a carrier licence and covered by the most recent annual eligible revenue assessment made by ACMA are liable to pay the levy each quarter. A Ministerial Determination registered on 1December2005 restricts payment of the levy to carriers that have annual eligible revenue of $10 million or more in the most recent assessment.
ACMA is responsible for the collection of the NRS levy on behalf of the Australian Government.
The quarterly NRS levy is based on a forward estimate from the NRS providers of expected levels of usage of the NRS and planned outreach activities, along with a reconciliation of actual activity against the estimate provided from the relevant prior quarter.
The cost of providing the NRS in 2007–08 was $16.1 million (including GST). The budget for the outreach program was capped at $3 million annually (including GST). The relay service component is variable, as it is based on a set rate for every call minute delivered.
What is the National Relay Service Plan?
Subection 95(2) of the Telecommunications (Consumer Protection and Service Standards) Act1999 requires that the NRS providers prepare service plans for the NRS which must include at least the following:
●timetables for supply of the NRS;
●performance standards to be met by the NRS providers.
The NRS Plan is prepared annually from these service plans and is available on the NRS website at
Snapshot of the National Relay Service
Call Minutes
Call minutes relayed by the NRS are calculated as the cumulative time duration of successful outbound calls made from the relay service. They provide the basis of payment to the relay service provider whose remuneration is based upon a fixed amount for each call minute relayed.
Both call minutes and number of users of the NRS have shown an increase for the 2007–08 year from the 2006–07 year.
With the introduction of internet relay, there has been an increase in call minutes in 2007–08 of 5.73 per cent from 2006–07.
The 2007–08 increase in call minutes contrasts with a reasonably steady decline in the number of call minutes relayed over the previous three years, as shown in Table 1.
Table 1: Call minutes relayed
Financial year / Total call minutes / Percentage change2002–03 / 3,741,685 / —
2003–04 / 3,780,741 / 1.04
2004–05 / 3,641,559 / –3.68
2005–06 / 3,408,420 / –6.40
2006–07 / 3,162,046 / –7.23
2007–08 / 3,343,112 / 5.73
The factors underlying the previous declining trend are thought to be extraneous to the NRS itself and are likely to continue to affect the use of the service over the longer term. For example, the popularity of mainstream text-based communication methods, such as email, instant messaging and SMS within the communities which use the NRS has reduced the need to make as many calls via the service. Research undertaken by the NRS outreach provider confirms that many users are now using the NRS to establish contact initially and then making other arrangements, such as email, to continue the contact.
Nonetheless the introduction of internet relay indicates that the application of new technologies to the service can enhance its usefulness, as reflected by increased usage.
Number of NRS users
Nearly 8,000 Australians per month are using the NRS[2]. (These users include hearing people using the NRS to contact Deaf, hearing impaired or speech-impaired persons.)
This is a slight increase on the number on the 2006–07 figures. The number of individual NRS users has previously declined over the past five years, although at a slightly slower rate than the decline in call minutes.
Inbound call types
Inbound calls are calls made by NRS users to the relay service; relay officers then make an outbound call to the individual or business the NRS user wishes to contact. The majority of these inbound calls are made by Deaf, hearing- and/or speech-impaired users seeking to communicate with friends and family and the broader community.
The majority of the inbound calls made to the NRS in 2007–08 came from users of the Type and Read service, primarily users with a TTY or those using the internet relay to make a call.
Speak and Read calls accounted for the next largest number of calls made. Voice calls, most often hearing persons using the NRS to contact Deaf or hearing- and/or speech-impaired users, was the other dominant category of inbound calls.
Internet relay now accounts for a significant proportion of inbound calls, 16 per cent in 2007–08.
Overall, however, the distribution of inbound calls types has remained relatively stable over time, with 60 per cent of inbound calls involving some version of a Type and Read call (comprising TTY, modem and internet relay)..
Figure 1. Inbound call types
Source of inbound calls
Use of the NRS is well-aligned with the distribution of the Australian population, with more than 30 per cent of users located in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory. However, there are slightly more users in Victoria and Tasmania proportionate to population.
Figure 2. Inbound calls by unique CLI
Outbound call types
Outbound calls are those placed on behalf of users, via the relay service, usually to the wider community. Accordingly, voice calls (where the relay officer speaks the text received via TTY or internet) represent nearly 9 in every 10 outbound calls made by the NRS.
The predominance of voice call representation in outbound calls has remained unchanged in recent years, reflecting the nature of the service as a communication bridge between text and voice users of telecommunications.
Figure 3. Outbound call types
Relay service performance in 2007–08
Availability and Operation of the Relay service
The relay service provider is required to:
●operate the NRS 24 hours a day, seven days a week, everyday of the year;
●ensure privacy of the content of all calls and the identity of callers (except for calls through the text emergency call service, as required by law)
●place no limits on the length or number of calls made through the NRS.
Service options
The call relay options in Table 2 are provided 24 hours a day, every day of the year, in the English language.
Table 2: Call relay options
Inbound via / Oubound viaInternet / TTY / Modem / Voice / Call option / Call type / TTY / Voice
/ Type and Read / Voice to text relay /
/ / / Type and Read / Text to voice relay /
/ Type and Read / Internet relay / /
/ Type and Listen / Hearing carryover /
/ Speak and Read / Voice carryover (VCO) / /
/ / Speak and Read / VCO to VCO / /
/ Speak and Listen / Speech-to-speech relay /
/ / Text emergency service /
Call Charges and Billing
Calls to the national 13 and 1300 NRS numbers incur a connection fee determined by the caller’s telephone service provider. This cost is around the cost of a local call and applies to any call made within Australia, except calls to premium rate service numbers (see below). Calls to the text emergency service (106) and to 1800 numbers are free.
Calls to international and premium rate service numbers can be made via the NRS but require the caller to establish an account with the NRS provider to which the costs of such calls can be charged.
Relay Service performance standards
The service performance standards for the relay service have changed in this financial year: a new measurement ‘call abandonment’ has been adopted for standard inbound NRS calls.
Performance standards for text emergency and speech-to-speech calls continue to be based on the call blockage performance standard that measures the availability and accessibility of the NRS.
The standards for 2007–08 were:
- call abandonment—standard NRS calls (excluding internet relay calls)—no more than 2 calls per 100 into the relay service abandoned in any quarter
- no more than 0.5 per cent of combined text emergency calls and speech-to-speech calls into the Relay Service received a busy signal on the day (quarterly average)
- at least 99 per cent of text emergency calls and speech-to-speech calls answered by a Relay Officer within 10 seconds.
The relay service provider met these performance standards in 2007–08, as set out below.
Call abandonment: Standard calls
As Figure 4 shows, the required call abandonment rate of no more than 2 calls per 100 was met in all four quarters for standard relay calls, with the best performance occurring in the last quarter of the year.