Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, began his career teaching "visible speech" to students at a Boston school for the deaf. And his "electrical speech machine" was designed, in part, with the hope of helping his mother and his wife -- both deaf -- to communicate more easily.

The telephone, of course, has gone from a novelty to a necessity since the first call was placed in 1876. But as an assistive device, it never quite lived up to Bell's dream.

Today, telephone relay systems allow people with hearing and speech impairments to place and receive calls with the help of keyboards and third-party "relay operators," but the cumbersome process can strip the discussion of nuance and emotion.

"With video relay, I'm able to use my natural language, which is (American) Sign Language," said James Ahearn, of Greensburg, who lost his hearing at age 2 after contracting spinal meningitis.

A high-speed Internet connection and Web camera installed in his office at Cal U lets Ahearn communicate through a video relay service. A video monitor links him to a sign language interpreter, who can see his facial expressions and the emotion conveyed by his signed speech and finger-spelling.

Using conventional phone lines, the interpreter conveys Ahearn's message, confidentially and word for word, to the party he has called. The response is relayed back to him in sign language.

The interaction is quicker and "a lot smoother" than a traditional telephone relay, which would require an operator to read Ahearn's typewritten message aloud, listen for an answer, then type back the response.

According to Gallaudet University, a college for the deaf in Washington, D.C., more than 250,000 people use American Sign Language. Ahearn teaches sign language part time at Duquesne University, and hopes someday to offer instruction at Cal U.

"It doesn't take me long to express my thoughts," said Ahearn, who also has worked in the payroll departments at Mellon Bank, UPMC and Goodwill Industries. "Because I'm deaf, my first language is American Sign Language. It's a visual language."

That may help to explain why video relay services are quickly becoming a favorite tool for people with hearing impairments. In just one month -- June 2005 -- video relay usage topped 2 million minutes. That's a 10-fold increase over the number of minutes used just two years ago and, significantly, it surpassed the number of minutes devoted to traditional telephone relays.

To accommodate the growing demand for the video relay system, the Federal Communications Commission recently adopted regulations that will make it faster and easier to use.

The FCC now requires video relay calls to be answered 24 hours a day, seven days a week -- but a shortage of interpreters means callers often must wait for an answer. By Jan. 1, video relay providers will be required to answer 80 percent of their calls within 180 seconds. Beginning Jan. 1, 2007, 80 percent of calls must be answered within two minutes.

In July, the FCC also ruled that video relay providers must be prepared to handle calls in Spanish. According to Gallaudet University, nearly one in four of the nation's deaf and hearing-impaired students age 3 and older is Latino.

The relay services are provided free under the Americans With Disabilities Act. Calls are channeled through 33 call centers nationwide, one of them in Pittsburgh. The FCC recognizes eight carriers, including phone companies such as AT&T and Sprint, and private providers such as Sorenson Video Relay Service -- the service Ahearn uses -- and Hamilton Relay Inc. All eight carriers receive federal funding through the National Exchange Carriers Act, which also funds traditional relay systems.

Reaching a relay service is as simple as dialing 711 -- an easy-to-recall number that's being promoted on billboards posted throughout the region.

It's been the phone number for telephone relay services in Pennsylvania since 1998, but 711 hasn't achieved the recognition of the 911 emergency number -- or even the 411 "information" number that's found its way into teen slang.

In an effort to educate the public, July 11 was declared "711 Relay Day" in Pennsylvania, where one in every 12 residents -- 8 percent of the population -- has a hearing impairment or speech disability. But state legislators say only 9 percent of Pennsylvanians are aware of the 711 relay.

Callers who dial the three-digit number reach an AT&T operator who will relay the call through a text telephone -- called a TTY -- a video system or a computer linked to the Internet.

The state Public Utility Commission regulates Pennsylvania's 711 system. PUC Commissioner William Shane, of Indiana County, served as commission chairman in the early 1990s, when the state created the relay service.

Sandy Duncan, who is deaf, works for the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry and currently serves as the state coordinator for the deaf and hard of hearing. Duncan, of Harrisburg, said a simple, three-digit number makes communicating simpler for people with hearing impairments.

"In the past we had to dial a 1-800 number," Duncan said. "It is too much trouble for us to dial a full number. 711 is faster and more effective for anyone. It's the same reason for people to use 911."

When it was created, the TTY system was a blessing for people with speech and hearing impairments. It enabled them to call friends and family, maintain business relationships and seek government assistance. It's still the only way, other than a traditional telephone, for deaf people to reach the 911 emergency service.

But the system is not flawless. The caller must have a special TTY device, and he must depend on an operator to convey his words. There often are delays while the interpreter and the deaf person type their responses and wait for the words to appear on the TTY screen, one line at a time.

Ahearn agrees that the TTY system lacks the capacity to convey mood and personality. And it's harder to express his thoughts, he said, when he must type his responses. He prefers the video relay system because it uses his "natural language" and provides a more immediate response.

"I will continue using both relay services," he said. "It is nice to use the video phone, because I do use sign language. Visual is a nice way for me to communicate with emotion. I can share with anyone."

E-mail and text-messaging help many hearing-impaired people keep in touch. Other people have begun using "captioned telephones," which use software recognition programs to convert spoken words into text.

Still another emerging technology is Internet Protocol Relay, which allows callers to reach a relay operator via the Internet. Instead of using a TTY, the caller taps out his message on a computer keyboard. The second leg of the call goes to the receiving party through a traditional phone network.

Duncan said he is proud of the work Pennsylvania has done to create efficient relay systems, and he reminds people to be patient. Callers using the systems may experience slight delays that can, at first, be confusing.

"I'm delighted to see how this has flowered," he said. "I think it takes a hearing impaired person out of isolation and lets them communicate with the world."

This is cache, read story here