From: "westwood1" <westwood1@mindspring.com>

To: "Karen Edwards" <piac@ntia.doc.gov>

Date: 3/11/98 11:59am

Subject: Handout for PIAC

Dear Karen Edwards,

Would you please distribute the following:

To: Public Interest Advisory Committee

From: National Association of Radio Reading Services, c/o Robert Brummond

at: westwood1@mindspring.com

Date: March 12, 1998

Re: Digital TV Potential

At your January meeting you learned about closed captioning for the deaf and

hard of hearing, and you also learned about descriptive video services for

the blind and print-impaired viewers. Blind people currently have access to

only about ten percent of the written material readily available to the

sighted world.

The DTV delivery system can take a major stride to make more written

material readily available to those most needing it.

We, therefore, would like you to consider an additional necessary service

which digital TV will be able to provide for the blind and print-impaired

listeners. The potential to deliver newspapers, magazines and books

digitally directly to the users home or office via DTV signals is vital to

blind and print-impaired citizens. This delivery system offers the most

cost-effective means of delivering the greatest amount of information to the

user. The end user, properly equipped with receiving and recording

equipment, can either listen during a live feed of the programming or record

it digitally for a more convenient time of reading.

We are suggesting a system of delivery of newspapers, books and other

written material directly to the user's home or office which can be done for

pennies per hour. This delivery of information is vital to all of us to

function on a daily basis.

Presently Radio Reading Services throughout the country are attempting to

provide some of this vital information over subcarriers on public FM radio

stations. However, their transmission over the subcarriers is being

threatened by commercial interests with deep pockets wishing to lease the

subcarrier space currently being used by the Radio Reading Services.

Also, from a technical standpoint, transmission of analog audio subcarriers

offers minimal good quality, geographic coverage, which is much less than

the regular FM signal. Crosstalk and other shortcomings make this

technology less desirable. The DTV digital stream, along with the more

powerful signal capability, will result in clearer and more flexible

handling of the needed information.

We ask you to consider mandating at least 60 Kbs of each DTV signal to

deliver the above described information. To the extent possible, would you

advise manufacturers to allow for interfacing their receivers with special

equipment to decode and record this digital information.

The issue is to carve out, or mandate, a certain amount of the data stream

for the delivery of audio information along with closed caption and

descriptive video. The National Association of Radio Reading Services

stands available to further elaborate on this subject.

Robert Brummond, Manager of R.A.I.S.E.

75 Haywood St., Suite G-5

Asheville, N.C. 28801