In these instances, companies have the flexibility to distribute those features across product or service lines, so long as they do all that is readily achievable. The requirement for a product or service to be usable by people with disabilities covers the ability of people with disabilities to learn about and operate an item s features effectively. This includes providing access to information and documentation for the product or service, including instructions and user guides. In addition, companies must provide functionally equivalent access to support services, such as technical support hotlines and databases, call centers, service centers, access to repair services, and billing services. Peripheral devices are devices that help make telecommunications products and services accessible to individuals with disabilities.
Examples are TTYs, visual signaling devices, and amplifiers.
SCPE includes equipment, commonly used at the premises of a person with a disability, to achieve access in the origination, routing, or termination of calls and other telecommunications contacts. In determining what is readily achievable, companies must balance the costs and nature of the access required with their available resources. Companies that have great resources will need to do more to achieve access than will companies with smaller budgets. A company may not need to provide access when the access feature would so fundamentally alter the product that it would reduce substantially the functionality of the product, make some features unusable, impede substantially or deter use of the product by other individuals, or alter substantially and materially the shape, size or weight of the product. Similarly a company does not have to incorporate an access feature that is not technically possible.