Hi, Donna:
My apologies for the slow response. I've been distracted by noncomputer
responsibilities these past few weeks.
To answer your question I'd need to know a bit more what your needs
are. Let me explain:
Probably the most widely known soft phone is Skype. Howegver, I myself
don't use Skype. Depending on your platform, you might find Skype
accessible--or not. For instance it's not accessible on Linux today.
On Apple products we have Face Time. I've used it slightly, and my
experience suggest it's accessibility is excellent.
There are other soft phone clients that people use for voice communications
such as Face Book's Whatsapp, or
Cisco's GoToMeeting or their Webex product. Accessibility of these
varies from very accessible, e.g. Webex on Android, to not very
accessible for anyone even when you're not using assistive technology,
e.g. Webex on Mac.
Now, my situation is somewhat different. I have the particular
requirement for an old fashioned phone number. I need the ability to
recieve calls from any phone anywhere, and to call any traditional
telephone number anywhere. I do this in two ways using the SIP protocol
and a gateway service that routes calls between my SIP devices and the
standard telephony world, usually abrieviated PSTN, which stands for
"Public Switched Telephone Network."
1.) I have hard ware devices that look all the world like old
fashioned telephones, but they're different. They're hardware SIP
phones, and they connect over computer type network cables--what we call
Cat5 (or Cat6) ethernet cables.
My current device of choice is the Snom D715, primarily because
it's able to use IPv6, where Polycom phones do not. I have not
investigated use of the SIP handsets from Digium--though they're
on my list to look at the next time I'm in the market for a
hardware phone.
2.) I use linphone, and sometimes the fs_cli application
provided by FreeSwitch on my Linux computers for placing and
recieving SIP calls. This functionality is critical to my work
because it allows me to use a high quality headset that connects
to my computer using USB, and still allows me to route the audio
through a 12 channel audio hardware mixer on my desk. This way
I'm able to have my screen reader as well as my telephone
conversation in my ears, without the people I'm talking with
hearing my screen reader.
Of course SIP phones can be used to place direct calls to other SIP
phones, just like Skype and FaceTime calls can be made to others who are
also using Skype or FaceTime. I believe Skype also provides the ability
to call to and from the PSTN, but I don't know anything specific about
that, or about any similar functionality among the other soft phones
mentioned.
The biggest problem with all these services is that they don't
interoperate natively, e.g. Webex can't call FaceTime, or vice versa.
The standards world is hoping to solve this with specifications called
WebRTC. Time will tell how that goes.
Hope this helps!
Janina
Donna Goodin writes:
> Hi all,
>
> I'm directing this question to Janina as she mentioned using a soft phone,
> but would be interested in hearing from anyone else who uses one.
>
> Can anyone recommend good accessible soft phone options?
> TIA,
> Donna
>
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Janina Sajka, Phone: +1.443.300.2200
sip:jan...@asterisk.rednote.net
Email: jan...@rednote.net
Linux Foundation Fellow
Executive Chair, Accessibility Workgroup: http://a11y.org
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
Chair, Accessible Platform Architectures http://www.w3.org/wai/apa
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