ADA Title IV: Telecommunications Relay Services, Access, and Costs

Title IV of the Americans with Disabilities Act requires telephone companies to provide telecommunications relay services so that people who are deaf, hard of hearing, or have a speech disability can make and receive phone calls on equal terms with everyone else. The legal standard, codified at 47 U.S.C. § 225, is called “functional equivalence”: your call cannot be shorter, more restricted, or less private than a standard voice call.¹ The Federal Communications Commission enforces the rules, and you reach the service by dialing 7-1-1 from any phone in the United States.

How to Reach a Relay Service

Dial 7-1-1. Since October 2001, that three-digit code connects you to your local relay provider from any telephone in the country. Before 7-1-1, relay users had to remember different toll-free numbers that varied by state and changed when they traveled.²

Hearing callers can dial 7-1-1 too when they need to reach someone who uses relay, which makes callbacks straightforward for people unfamiliar with the system. Frequent relay users can set up a caller profile so 7-1-1 routes them directly to their preferred format instead of walking them through menus each time.

The Types of Relay Services

Different disabilities call for different relay formats. The original text-telephone (TTY) model has largely given way to internet-based options, and you choose the one that fits how you communicate.

Video Relay Service (VRS) connects a sign-language user to a qualified interpreter over video. The interpreter watches you sign, voices your message to the hearing party, and signs the response back. This is the closest thing to a natural phone call for people who communicate primarily in American Sign Language.³
IP Relay lets you type your side of the conversation from a computer or web-enabled device. A communications assistant reads what you type aloud to the hearing party and types the reply back to you. You register with a provider and receive a standard ten-digit phone number.⁴
IP Captioned Telephone Service (IP CTS) is for people who can speak but have trouble hearing. You talk directly to the other party and read captions of their words on a screen. An assistant re-voices what the other person says, and voice-recognition software converts it to text in near real time.⁵
Speech-to-Speech (STS) serves people with speech disabilities who use a standard phone but are difficult for others to understand. A trained assistant listens and repeats your words clearly to the other party. No special equipment is required.⁶

All four formats must meet the same functional-equivalence standard, whatever device you use and wherever you are calling from.

What Functional Equivalence Means in Practice

The law does not stop at the general principle. Federal regulations turn functional equivalence into concrete performance requirements you can hold a provider to.

Relay services must operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with no exceptions. Providers cannot refuse a call, cap its length, or restrict what you talk about.³ Relay facilities must answer 85% of incoming calls within 10 seconds, measured from when the call reaches the facility’s network, not from when an assistant finally picks up.⁷

Once a call is connected, a TTY or VRS communications assistant must stay on the call for at least 10 minutes after reaching the other party. An STS assistant must stay for at least 20 minutes. Calls continue beyond those minimums unless one of the parties hangs up.⁷

Communications assistants have qualifications of their own. Text-based assistants must type at least 60 words per minute and demonstrate competent grammar, spelling, and familiarity with deaf and hard-of-hearing communication norms. VRS assistants must be qualified interpreters able to interpret effectively and impartially in both directions. Providers must also make best efforts to accommodate a request for an assistant of a particular gender.⁷

Privacy During a Relay Call

Because a communications assistant hears or reads every word, the rules on confidentiality are strict. Federal law prohibits relay providers from keeping any record of a conversation’s content after the call ends, and assistants cannot disclose what was said in any call they handle.¹

Assistants are also barred from altering a conversation. They must relay everything verbatim unless you specifically ask them to summarize.³ If you are discussing a medical diagnosis or negotiating an agreement, the assistant cannot paraphrase, edit, or skip details on their own.

Who Pays for Relay Services

Relay services are free to the people who use them. Every telephone company providing voice service, wireline or wireless, must ensure relay is available throughout its service area. A carrier can meet the obligation on its own, through a vendor chosen by competitive bidding, or by working with other carriers.¹

The costs are covered by the Interstate Telecommunications Relay Services Fund, which telecommunications carriers and Voice over Internet Protocol providers pay into as a percentage of their end-user revenues.⁸ The funding mechanism is invisible to consumers, and there is no bill for using 7-1-1.

Equipment for People Who Are Deaf-Blind

People with combined vision and hearing loss can qualify for free equipment and training through the National Deaf-Blind Equipment Distribution Program, known as iCanConnect. The program provides smartphones, tablets, computers, screen readers, braille displays, and other assistive technology matched to each participant through an individual assessment.⁹

Eligibility requires both significant vision loss and significant hearing loss, attested in writing by a healthcare provider, educator, or rehabilitation counselor. Vision loss means visual acuity of 20/200 or worse with correction, a visual field of 20 degrees or less, or a progressive condition heading toward either threshold. Hearing loss means a chronic disability severe enough that most speech cannot be understood even with amplification, or a progressive condition heading there.⁹

Household income cannot exceed 400% of the federal poverty guidelines. For a single person in 2026, that ceiling is $63,840 in most states, $79,800 in Alaska, and $73,440 in Hawaii. The program runs in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. territories.⁹

If a Relay Service Fails You

The FCC enforces Title IV directly. When a provider misses the operational standards or a carrier neglects its accessibility obligations, the agency can investigate and impose penalties. By statute, the FCC must resolve a complaint by final order within 180 days of filing.¹

You can reach the FCC’s Disability Rights Office by phone at 202-418-2517, by videophone at 1-844-432-2275, by email at dro@fcc.gov, or by mail. The office will complete a Communications Accessibility Informal Complaint form using the information you provide, including your contact details, the names and addresses of the companies involved, and a summary of what happened.¹⁰ The FCC has the same enforcement authority over intrastate relay calls that it holds over interstate ones, so a provider cannot escape oversight by pointing out that a call was local.

If your state runs its own FCC-certified relay program, the agency will refer intrastate complaints to the state, which then has 180 days to resolve them. If the state does not act within that window, the FCC takes the matter back.³

Captioning of Federal Public Service Announcements

Title IV also addresses television. Under 47 U.S.C. § 611, any TV public service announcement produced or funded in whole or in part by a federal agency must include closed captioning of its spoken content.¹¹

The captioning duty falls on the federal agency producing or funding the announcement, not on the television station airing it. Stations are not required to add captions to an announcement that arrives without them, and they face no liability for airing an uncaptioned federal PSA unless they intentionally strip out captions that were already included.¹¹ Accountability sits with the agency that controls the production.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 47 USC 225 – Telecommunications Services for Hearing-Impaired and Speech-Impaired Individuals
2
Federal Register. Require 711 Dialing for Nationwide Access to Telecommunications Relay Services
3
eCFR. 47 CFR Part 64 Subpart F – Telecommunications Relay Services and Related Customer Premises Equipment for Persons With Disabilities
4
Federal Communications Commission. IP Relay Service
5
Federal Communications Commission. Internet Protocol (IP) Captioned Telephone Service
6
Federal Communications Commission. Speech-to-Speech Relay Service
7
eCFR. 47 CFR 64.604 – Mandatory Minimum Standards
8
Federal Communications Commission. Contributions to the TRS Fund
9
Federal Communications Commission. National Deaf-Blind Equipment Distribution Program
10
Federal Communications Commission. File an Informal Accessibility Complaint
11
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 47 USC 611 – Closed-Captioning of Public Service Announcements