Phones are a crucial tool in the workplace and an important link from home to the outside world. Given the popularity of mobile phones today, landline use may surprise you. In fact, almost 40% of adults still have a landline phone at home (Richter, F., 2020). In addition, 75% of work organizations use desk phones as their primary telecommunications device (Tsai, P., 2018). These percentages paint a clear picture. There are plenty of people with hearing loss who use landline and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phones. Whether at home or in the workplace, they and their employers should know how best to use them. There are phone accessibility features and laws that offer support. Above all, discover how much captions and listening with two ears improves your phone use.
What’s the difference?
If the difference between a landline and VoIP phone confuses you, you are not alone. A landline phone connects to a local network via a copper wire. That wire carries analog voice data. In contrast, a VoIP system goes beyond that and converts the analog voice data into packets of digital information. After that, this digital information travels over the internet. In addition, there are other basic differences as well. For example, landline phones are very reliable in a power outage and don’t require internet. However, VoIP systems are less costly and offer more capabilities.
Features for landline and VoIP phone accessibility:
- Volume control – increase the volume to hear others better.
- Ringer control – alerts you to incoming calls with a louder ring.
- Flashing lights – alerts you to incoming calls or messages.
- Tone Control – adjust frequencies to better fit your hearing profile.
- Speakerphone – to hear with both ears.
- Caller ID – helps prepare you when someone starts talking on a call.
- Captions – read what you cannot hear.
- Bluetooth – connects wirelessly with newer hearing aids or with a streamer. Most important, this enables you to hear with both ears on the phone.
- Headset jack – to plug in a headset or streamer and hear with both ears.
- Slow talk – slows down the call to make it easier to understand
- Digital wireless phones and VoIP services may be able to convey much more of the speech range. This brings higher quality audio.
