Hi All,

This last year at The University of Birmingham we have been trialling the
Bee Communications remote captioning service with a handful of our
students who have severe or profound hearing impairments (who are not
signers).

One issue we are having is that our university WiFi can be very variable
in reliability.  I am raising this with our IT but I don't realistically
expect a quick fix!

This is frustrating all round because when the Internet bit works, the
students are giving very positive feedback about remote-captioning for
realtime access to spoken word content as well as the benefits of not
having a person in the room with them which they find intrusive.

Bee have recommended that students are provided with a MiFi (mobile
broadband) dongle so they can use that if the WiFi is unreliable or not
available.  However SFE refuse to pay for the cost of the Dongle itself,
and will only pay for the ongoing costs.

Having braved some mobile broadband comparison sites most contracts either
have an initial costs fee of up to £60; very long contracts (24 months);
or cost significantly more than the DSA Internet Allowance of £150 per yr
(£12.50 a month).

Given SFE won't pay initial costs; many students will have fewer than 24
months left on their course and the monthly costs more than £12.50 a month
this suggests SFE's refusal to fund upfront costs means the student cannot
get the best value for money.  I also anticipate some students not having
good enough credit ratings or financial circumstances to afford £10-£15 a
month extra outgoings

One of my NHS students recently bought a suitable dongle for £55 upfront
and is using PAYG credit which means she's only paying (and reclaiming)
what download allowance she needs.  I am now worried the NHS will turn
around and refuse to refund her £55 (they're already messing her around
with reclaims) and my SFE students who need or wish to use PAYG are left
in limbo about this too.

I guess my questions to this list are:
1) Do you have any students using remote captioning and have you had
similar issues to us?

2) Have you ever managed to get SFE to pay for any Internet hardware that
the student needs to access remote captioning or anything else?

3) If the MiFi is a backup to the HEI provided WiFi is there then a case
that the HEI should fund the initial cost of the Dongle for the student as
that might be an institutional responsibility?

4) How are any of you who are using remote captioning services getting
along with them?

As ever, any thoughts on or off list would be appreciated.

Many thanks,

Natalya