Sprint WebCapTel and CapTel update

I have been tinkering around with the new Sprint WebCapTel since it was released this past Thursday and I for one am impressed to the point that I just want to plant a big ol’ wet one on the developer who came up with this FREE revolutionizing site! From this website, those of US who have difficulty with understanding people on the phone can now make a phone call from anywhere while reading word-for-word captions right on your web browser like Firefox :) but it works with IE, Safari and Opera.

-I kid you not!-

Its gets better, hold on to your britches kids because I haven’t even gotten started to sell this yet. All you need is a PC or Mac computer with web browser, an internet connection, and ANY working telephone that can receive calls. Yes, ANY working telephone such as your cell phone, home phone, work phone, amplified phone and even the CapTel phone! That is it! Those three things are all that is needed.

-Nuh uh-

Uh huh! I will not tell a lie! You can get started by creating a free account with them and activate it when you receive your confirmation email. Now once you are logged in, you can get started on making some phone calls. Here is the screen shot.

Under Place Call, enter the telephone number of the phone that you want to talk from like your home phone if you are home or your cell phone if you are at a hot WiFi spot or at work :) Then put the number that you want to dial and chose your preferred language and click on place call! A captioning window will come up showing that is dialing YOUR telephone number first. Once you pick up, then it will dial the number of the person you want to call! It will proceed to caption your call from there.

-No way!-

Yes way folks! There is more! In order to receive a call, you put the number you can be reached and click on “Start Waiting For Calls.” Don’t forget to tell people to dial 1-800-933-7219 and key in your number but once they do that the captioning box will come up captioning your phone call! It is a minor drawback giving out the 800 number but the fact that you don't need a special phone to use it with is a blessing!

How cool is that?! You can do this from any computer connected to the internet as long as you have a phone nearby, even wireless to wireless! You can even adjust the size and color of the font along with the background color which would help the deaf blind! I decided to use this at work because I hardly use the phone because I am afraid of screwing up a phone call but I want to use the phone because I really want to do all aspects of my job. So while I have been waiting for my CapTel phone to come at work Sprints WebCapTel enabled me to make a quite a few phone calls and for the first time, I felt confident about using the phone and its all because of Sprint. I still can't answer calls until I get the CapTel phone but something is better than nothing. They are working on adding a feature of calling extension numbers and 911 in the near future. I'm excited because it is going to help so many of US!

*curtsy*

I recently talked about how the 2-Line CapTel phone and how it helps US that have a hard time using the phone by providing word-for-word translation of the person on the other end of the phone. I am spreading the good news about this phone because I never knew about it! I had NO idea and if I had NO idea, I can only imagine how many more have NO idea that this is out there for US! They even have the CapTel USB that benefits the deaf-blind because it hooks directly up to USB port of your computer that allows the user to see the captions in large font. Many people can obtain one of these phones free or very low cost by going to this website.

Now, I have run into a minor technical snag with the 2-Line Captel phone that I received a couple weeks ago provided FREE by the state of New Jersey. In order to receive captioning on both incoming and outgoing phone calls easily and I like easy, one must have two separate phone lines that are explained by this snazzy little picture down here.

My minor technical snag is that my phone service is through Comcast Cable Digital Cable and at the moment I can only receive captioning on my outgoing calls not my incoming. Right now, the only way I can have my incoming calls captioned is to direct people to call 1-877-243-2823 (different # for Federal, California and Texas residents) and key in my home number.

*boo*

My wheels started turning since the second phone line can be a basic line, I wondered if the second line can be a digital cable FAX line with a DSL Filter. My reasoning comes from the fact that many Brother and HP fax machines are particularly fussy about their analog phone line requirement but if you have VOIP service like Vonage or Comcast a simple DSL filter will have them happily faxing to and fro in no time. I tried calling Comcast customer service to run this idea by them and they were about as helpful as a rusty under wire from my bra digging into my side. I will let you all know how this works out!

Challenge accepted Jodi
:)