Most people use the simple analogue telephone without any considerable effort.
For elderly and disabled people use of the telephone is vital, it enables them to keep in contact with family, friends, and, for example, their doctor. In fact, it often forms an insurmountable barrier which prevents him or her from access even to ordinary speech telecommunication. The present chapter focuses on the great family of standard analogue telephones which are in widespread use, and on related services. It will cover especially those telephones and supplementary devices corresponding to the needs of elderly people and people with disabilities. On the whole, the industry seems reluctant to burden common telephone sets with add-on costs, not even for providing simple interfaces to supplementary devices for disabled users.