TECHNOLOGY & TELECOMMUNICATIONS

FCC Accepts Hearing-Aid Proposal for Phones: If approved by the Federal Communications Commission after a comment period, the rules would eventually require that phones in workplaces, nursing homes, hospitals, hotels and motels be hearing-aid compatible. About 6 million Americans use hearing aids. Companies would not be required to immediately retrofit or replace existing telephones, as had been proposed previously. Rather, the rules set deadlines beyond phones’ average life span, therefore allowing businesses to install new models when they would be expected to replace their equipment anyway, the FCC said. For a telephone to be hearing aid compatible, its receiver must contain a small electromagnetic coil called a tele-coil. The FCC said that under the proposed rules, most workplace telephones would have to be hearing aid compatible by Jan. 1, 2000. Companies that purchased their phones between 1985 and 1989 would have until Jan. 1, 2005, to meet the standards.