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As technology has advanced a new service has been introduced for the consumer, wireless technology. Wireless has decreased the reliance on hard-wired communication devices such as telephones and computers and opened up a new era of mobility and work options to the general public. One of the first items in consumer electronics that benefited from this advance was the portable telephone. The only problem was that wireless telephones were not compatible with the hearing aid. As a consequence of this incompatibility in 1988 congress passed and the president signed into law the "Hearing Aid Compatibility Act" or the HAC Act. This new law required that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ensured that all telephones manufactured or imported for use in the United Sates were compatible with most sound amplification devices. There were, built into the ACT however, certain exemptions for public mobile services. Based on all data collected by the FCC, after the passage of HAC, the FCC established procedures and rules to make all sound amplification devices that fell under the law compatibility to new wireless phones. A hearing aid operates in either one of two modes, acoustic coupling or inductive coupling. In acoustic coupling the device receives and amplifies all sounds picked up by the microphone, such as speech as well as unwanted ambient background noise. Amplification devices operating in telecoil coupling mode, or inductive coupling, can avoid all unwanted background sounds by simply turning off the devices microphone. This limits its reception of to only those audio signals that are picked up from the magnetic fields of the phone. These signals include speech as well as unwanted ambient background noise. Amplification devices operating in telecoil coupling mode, or inductive coupling, can avoid unwanted background sounds by simply turning off the devices microphone and receiving only audio signals from the phones telecoil. A telecoil is a small tightly wrapped piece of wire placed inside the amplification device. It detects a voice signal from any compatible telephone. While the microphone on all amplification devices pick up all sounds, even unwanted ambient noise, telecoils only pick up clear voice signals. As a consequence, a consumer using a hearing aid equipped with a telecoil is able to communicate normally over a telephone without the nuisance of feedback or the amplification of undesired background noises. Telecoils are only available in two styles of devices at present. These are the "In The Ear" and the "Behind The Ear" device. If you are a frequent cell phone user the other parameter that is a consideration is the interface used by of the cell phone carrier. For technical reasons it is easier to meet the compatibility requirements of cell phones that use the CDMA interface than cell phones that use the GSM interface. Another technology leap in telephones that will affect those that are impaired has been the appearance of the smart phone. This device has the potential to revolutionize sound recognition to those people with impairments. Smart phone come in two designs, the I-phone, which is manufactured by Apple, and the Android, which is open sourced and has several manufacturers. The apps available for these two devices for the impaired have exploded and have both state of the art speech recognition capabilities along with noise reduction algorithms. They even have the capability to give you access to real time subtitles if you are in a theatre watching a movie or in some other venue. The manufacturers of these application are touting the fact that you could even do away with the traditional hearing aid and just use your smart phone an the recognition app in its place. Looking for morgantown, wv hearing aid vendors? Visit http://www.miracle-ear-morgantown.com to find out more informaiton.
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