287About Accessibility
Providing real-time communications to hearing- and/or speech-disabled peo-
ple is both a moral and economic imperative, and is required by regulators
across the world. Hearing- and speech-disabled people have often proven
to be significant contributors to arts and commerce. Ludwig van Beethoven
was deaf at a time when he composed some of his foremost and everlasting
classical music. Vint Cerf was not stopped by his impaired hearing from co-
inventing the TCP/IP protocol; founding and leading the Internet Society, the
IETF, ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers); and
working as a key executive at MCI and Google.
The specific needs of the hearing- and speech-disabled for interactive com-
munications can be best met using the Internet and SIP, as we will show in this
chapter. Indeed, it is argued in [1] that SIP enables the view that being deaf,
hard of hearing, or speech-impaired is no longer a barrier to communications.
Accessibility for
the Disabled
This chapter is dedicated to Sigrid and Vinton Cerf, who have a wonderful family
and a very successful professional life in spite of Sigrid having been born deaf and
Vint suffering all his life from severely impaired hearing.