Patent ID: 7236574

Claim:
A method for providing communication services, comprising: receiving a request from a hearing-impaired party for establishing a communication link; identifying a communication assistant from a list of available communication assistants; forwarding the request to the communication assistant; establishing, by the communication assistant, a communication link to the hearing-impaired party using a text messaging program, wherein the communication link between the hearing-impaired party and the communication assistant comprises a persistent, full duplex link configured to allow each of the communication assistant and the hearing-impaired party to view text generated by the other respective party in a streaming manner; receiving a telephone number from the hearing impaired party, the telephone number being associated with a hearing party; establishing, by the communication assistant, a voice link with the hearing party; receiving, by the communication assistant, voice messages from the hearing party via the voice link; generating text messages, by the communication assistant, the text messages corresponding to the voice messages; and transmitting the text messages to the hearing-impaired party in a streaming manner.