Instant Captioning is expected to provide clarity in interpersonal communications for people with hearing loss, by providing virtually real-time written text to accompany the spoken words. If the user has difficulty hearing what is said, he will be able to read the captions for clarification. Professionals, too, can use the service in meetings to take notes.
Students using the service can benefit from having a printout of the lecture they are attending.
The new Instant Captioning service is designed to work with a variety of devices, such as laptop or notebook computers, cellular phones with alphanumeric display screens or small hand-held instant captioning devices. The captions are displayed on the device s built-in screen so the user can read the words while listening to what is spoken by the other party. Access to the captioning service is done via a cellular connection or a standard telephone line. Although this service can be used by anyone, it is expected to be particularly useful to persons who have moderate to severe hearing loss or who are deaf, allowing them to participate in conversations and other voice-based communication in a functionally equivalent way. To get captions, the user simply presses a key on the Instant Captioning device which dials the captioning service center.