28 CFR Part 35 Title II Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) - Preamble (published 2008)

"Video Interpreting Services (VIS)"

The Department has added a definition of video interpreting services (VIS), a technology composed of a video phone, video monitors, cameras, a high speed Internet connection, and an interpreter.  The video phone provides video transmission to a video monitor that permits the individual who is deaf or hard of hearing to view and sign to a video interpreter (i.e., a live interpreter in another location), who can see and sign to the individual through a camera located on or near the monitor, while others can communicate by speaking.  The video monitor can display a split screen of two live images, with the interpreter in one image and the individual who is deaf or hard of hearing in the other image.

VIS can provide immediate, effective access to interpreting services seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day by allowing people in different locations to engage in live, virtual face-to-face communications.  Moreover, VIS is particularly helpful where qualified interpreters are not readily available (e.g., for quick response during emergency hospital visits, in areas with an insufficient number of qualified interpreters to meet demand, and in rural areas where distances and an interpreter's travel time present obstacles).

In addition to adding the specific definition of VIS, the Department proposes to add VIS to the definition of "auxiliary aids and services" (discussed above in § 35.104) and to set out performance standards for VIS at § 35.160.