World Telecom Day spotlights disability services

The communications technology exhibition at the Belize City Centre today was held under the banner “Connecting Persons with Disabilities: I.C.T. Opportunities for All”. And something for everyone was exactly what News Five’s Marion Ali found.

Marion Ali, Reporting
In keeping with this year’s theme for World Telecommunications Day, B.T.L. is stressing the need to keep the disabled in touch anytime, anywhere.

Ediberto Tesucum, Director, Telemedia
“We are conscious of these … our disabled community and we want to play a vital role in helping them to be part of society just like anybody else.”

Director at Telemedia, Ediberto Tesucum, says the company is doing its part in terms of targeted initiatives, as well as general advancements in technology.

Ediberto Tesucum
“A typical example is Stella Maris School where we have provided free internet, as we have done for other schools as well. Then there’s also the issue with our cellular phone as well where you can send S.M.S’s that they can do as well, that’s short messaging services. We look at the elderly as well. We might just think of disability as probably blindness or being deaf or so on but even age itself can be a disability when you reach a certain age and you cannot move around as you used to before, then you need access to some kind of service and that’s where we provide what we call the Afford a Phone Service, a service within the reach of the elderly, those that cannot really afford it to be able to communicate.”

And for the visually impaired this brail phone makes life a whole lot easier…

But while the exhibition focused on people with special needs, B.T.L’s Marketing department could not resist the opportunity to push new services like Fone Top Up and Home Fone Services.

…and preview future offerings that connect customers directly to their favourite D.J.

Linda Bautista, Business Development Executive
“The next feature that we’re featuring today is one based similar to the K.T.V. system that we had used for Karaoke Television. It’s a website and listeners can send requests, participate in polls, do competitions through text messaging. There will be a short code where you can text your request to. It pops up on a screen where the D.J. can look, that would be in front of the studio, and the D.J. would then say the request over the air.”

But if chatting is your way of keeping in touch, you will also be able in the next few months to use your regular cell phone to chat with someone logged on to the internet, a service called Digicell Messenger.

Linda Bautista
“You go and log into you’re your regular Hotmail, Messenger, M.S.N. account on the computer and what you can do is use your cell phone if you don’t want to be at your computer desk, what you can do is log on via your mobile phone. You can communicate with anybody who is on your list.”

Reporting for News Five, I am Marion Ali.

Tesucum told News Five that later this year people in rural areas can look forward to the rollout of B.T.L.’s new wireless internet service.