VRS interoperabilty for videomail

TechBill said:
I am curious

Where did you get the 22 dollar something per minutes information from?

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Yeah, I vaguely recall it was a little over six dollars a minute at one time....been steadily going down ever since.
 
I thought it was 24 dollars per minute in 2004-2005. Yes, it is true and the highest I believe was 27 dollars to begin with an that was 2002.

TechBill said:
I am curious

Where did you get the 22 dollar something per minutes information from?

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The "problem" here is direct point-to-point calling vs "server based routing".

Older endpoints like the VP200 had your home IP address entered into the iTRS database. Your router allowed an inbound port connection for H.323 call setup, which let someone call the VP200 from the Internet.

H.323 "facility redirect" isn't supported by all videophones, so Sorenson couldn't get away with simply redirecting incoming calls to a central videomail server.

If your home router is down, inbound calls can't make it to the phone, so the called party recording a videomail message isn't possible in that model.

Instead, Sorenson made their "signmail" solution which records the message on the calling party's phone. Meaning, if you are a Sorenson customer and call another Sorenson customer phone that is either not online or is busy, your phone records the message locally and then uploads it to Sorenson to be delivered to the called party's Sorenson phone when it becomes available again.

The problem with this model is that nobody else has access to this proprietary Sorenson signmail system. There are no publish APIs for other VRS providers to interface with. It is entirely proprietary and closed. This mechanism is also entirely bizarre, and not used by any other VoIP solution on the planet. Nobody else does it this way. Anywhere. If you don't think this was intentional, I'm not going to try and convince you otherwise.

Most VRS videophones today, including the newer Sorenson nTouch phones, register with "gateways" on the Internet that are run by VRS providers when they are turned on.

These gateways have their IP addresses entered in the iTRS database for those phone numbers. This allows calls to those phones to be routed to cloud servers which can then record voicemail messages if the called phones aren't online.

Sorenson is finally putting a nail in this coffin by finally ending Signmail support for the VP200 videophones so they no longer have this interoperability barrier.

You can find Sorenson's ECFS filing of notice of substantial change for that here:

http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/view?id=7521366519

Pursuant to 47 C.F.R. § 64.606(f)(2), Sorenson Communications, Inc., (“Sorenson”) hereby notifies the Commission of a substantive change to its TRS service. On May 14, 2014, Sorenson ended SignMail support for its VP-200 phones as part of its plans to end support of VP-200s. Sorenson has made ntouch phones, which continue to receive SignMail support, available to all VP-200 users since 2011, and continues to offer them to any remaining VP-200 users. Sorenson is aware of fewer than 5,000 VP-200s still in use. Sorenson does not believe that this change will affect its ability to meet federal minimum standards.
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This was filed July 3rd. Sorenson claims fewer than 5,000 VP-200s still in use.

It is also finally enabling the same functionality in nTouch Signmail that has been available for all other VRS providers for years now: the ability to record messages on a cloud based voicemail server instead of on the calling party's phone. This may be related to the new nTouch version 4 update as per this recent filing:

http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/view?id=7522900740


Pursuant to 47 C.F.R. § 64.606(f)(2), Sorenson Communications, Inc., (“Sorenson”) hereby notifies the Commission of a substantive change to its TRS service. On or around July 23, 2014, Sorenson began rolling out version 4.0 of its ntouch software. Sorenson expects to upgrade all users over the course of approximately six months to one year.
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I honestly have no idea if any of that is required for cloud-based videomail recording to function. They don't say as much in their filing.

Full disclosure: I no longer work in the VRS industry, having left it for a startup over a year and a half ago, but I still keep up with what is going on.
 
diehardbiker said:
I thought it was 24 dollars per minute in 2004-2005. Yes, it is true and the highest I believe was 27 dollars to begin with an that was 2002.
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27???? :eek3: MAN ... Why didn't I start a VRS company years ago! I could had retired by now! :-o


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Another thing about SignMail ... It like email with video attachment or that popular video text apps called Glide or something (don't remember but my wife love it and use it all the time)

It put the power back into the caller rather than having the caller at the mercy of the receiver's end.

Sorenson's SignMail allows you to "back out or cancel" the video message while other VRS uses cloud based video which mean everything recorded in real time to the receiver's cloud storage.

Let me elaborate more on this

You are in the middle of leaving a video message and you didn't notice your naked child got out of the bathtub and came running to you or one of your half-naked spouse walks in background not realizing that your on the video phone leaving a video message.

Now with Sorenson SignMail, you can just cancel that recording and record your message again without a worry.

But with other VRS cloud based video messaging, whatever is recorded cannot be cancelled or taken back.

So your at the mercy of the receiver who have that recorded video message that they will delete it for you and not try to use to spite you or to share the video with others etc.


And Video recording are more sensitive in nature than a voice recording because it show a whole lot more to the other end.

Myself I would prefer to be in CONTROL of my video messages and be satisfied with it BEFORE IT IS SENT to the receiver.

One other thing I like about SignMail is video message is recorded locally to your nVP before sending to the receiver meaning if your internet is slow or bad it will still send a nice clean video

With real time cloud based video recording, bad internet speed still causes blurry in the recording

I hope Sorenson keep the SignMail feature at same time add support on cloud based recording for other VRS phone.


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vrsengineer - thank you for explanation. I know it makes sense to a technie like me or techbill, but others I am curious about what they think.

techbill - you are right about cancel msg etc and I am sure we can voice wants to other vrs'es and get them onboard with this feature unless its already patented by sorenson. If it is I wouldnt be surprised. However, one thing at a time- we still have a long way to go to have the best of everything for what we need in VRS features .

My only concern is the latest post by ed's alert about his opinion about the possible outcomes of the vrs neutral platform.

I gotta tell ya -- its feeling like TTY/TDD's days of payments where money is less and less every year and then it became deregulated to state level. This can't be good at the VRS level. its a nationwide way of communication and it dependent on the internet, not the individual phone lines at state level.
 
Is H.323 Sorenson's server? Does ZVRS and Purple rented other company's server?

VRSEngineer said:
H.323 "facility redirect" isn't supported by all videophones, so Sorenson couldn't get away with simply redirecting incoming calls to a central videomail server.
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mikemike said:
Is H.323 Sorenson's server? Does ZVRS and Purple rented other company's server?

VRSEngineer said:
H.323 "facility redirect" isn't supported by all videophones, so Sorenson couldn't get away with simply redirecting incoming calls to a central videomail server.
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what are you asking here? are you asking who owns the gatekeepers?
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TechBill said:
I believe that Neutral Platform take our freedom of choices away from us and put it in the hand of the Government.

I still would like to be able to choose what hardware or software as hearing world could choose what smartphone or computer they want.

Does Verizon smartphone work on AT&T system? NO .....

But you still could call to AT&T folks from Verizon smartphone on Verizon system so it give Verizon the freedom to come whatever platform they want to offer to their customer. Why can't we have the same??......

Isn't that what VRS doing right now offer Deaf people the same choice as hearing people get which is to be able to choose the platform and company they want to call from as long it connect to another competitor system???...

I believe that this so call "Neutral Platform" will put us back into the Black and White world again.

Is Windows or Mac or Linux the same? NO ....

But yet you still can send emails to different platforms from email client you choose freely ....... Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc ......

I don't want a "WinGovernApplement" O/S on my hardware.........



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TechBill - I agree with you, but it may surprise you to know that the FCC feels the same way. They have been tasked with providing equal access to communication to all people, including deaf, hard of hearing and speech impaired. I have had numerous conversations with them about our ACCESS platform. They understand that it is a agnostic platform designed to work with all VRS providers. The ACCESS subscriber can choose which VRS provider their VRS call is placed through.

To their credit, The FCC has not tried to discourage us from growing this platform and adding additional VRS providers. They want to make sure it is in compliance with FCC rules and that it does not create a pathway to fraud or abuse, but they are not trying to stop us from offering a free-market solution that provides equal access to all VRS providers to the deaf community. The ACCESS platform will communicate with the ACE platform being built by the FCC. So even when the FCC platform is done, you will not be limited to just ACE, you can still choose a free-market platform if so desired.
 
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