What are Telecommunications Relay Services?
Printable Version Telecommunications Relay Services (TRS) were created to allow people who have difficulty hearing or speaking on the telephone to communicate with voice telephone users. Under Title IV of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) [1], each state, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and all of the U.S. territories must provide free relay services. TRS uses “communications assistants” to facilitate the telephone calls, local and long distance, at no cost to the user, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. There are no restrictions imposed on callers concerning the length, frequency, or nature of their calls. A person who is deaf or heard of hearing or has a speech disability, or a person without such a disability, can initiate a call by dialing 7-1-1 to connect to a relay service anywhere in the United States. The following are the types of telephone relay services available as of October 2007; as technology advances, newer forms of TRS may become available. The descriptions
