FCC Shutdown Hit Amazon, Kobo and Sony E-Reader Accessibility Waiver Request

Once the agency reopens, the likeliest course is it will approve the waiver from the Coalition of E-Reader Manufacturers for a period of time, said opponents including National Federation of the Blind (NFB) Government Affairs Specialist Lauren McLarney. Still “optimistic” the waiver will be denied in its entirety, she said a time-limited grant is the most likely possibility because the agency hasn’t approved without time limits many other waivers of disabilities rules under the 2010 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act. Under a spring order about other CVAA rules, all devices with browsers that shipped after last Tuesday must have made ACS functions accessible to the disabled, said Eric Bridges, American Council of the Blind (ACB) director-advocacy and government affairs. “Oct. 8 was to be the date of compliance for the advanced communications services component of the CVAA which includes devices like e-readers.” He said he shares McLarney’s view that a time-limited waiver will be issued, though he too hopes leeway of any kind will be denied.

The practical impact of the lack of FCC action may be limited for now, some said. “With the FCC closed, we're all in suspended animation,” said communications lawyer Gerald Waldron of Covington & Burling, representing the coalition of Amazon, Kobo and Sony. “No complaints can be filed. So we're in this sort of never-never land.” Representatives for the three companies had no comment. Kobo, the only company of those that would disclose e-reader prices to us, said manufacturer-suggested retail prices range from $79.99 for the Mini to $169.99 for the Aura HD.

Whether there is much consumer demand to use e-readers -- among the most basic of consumer devices on a spectrum that includes smartphones, tablets and full computers -- for basic Web browsing, email, social media updates and instant messaging, is a subject of debate between industry and advocates for the sight-impaired. Filings on the coalition’s petition in FCC docket 10-213 aren’t available on the agency’s website or in saved versions of the site maintained by others, so we received the filings by email from those who made them. They show that CEA, Digital Media Association and the Internet Association backed the coalition, while many groups representing those with vision impairment opposed it.

Consumer use of e-readers for anything other than reading appears limited, said an analyst who follows closely the industry and a researcher at a nonprofit that tracks CE device use. Even using such devices like audio books seems limited, they said. Filings from ACB, NFB and allies that also include some libraries and interviews show they think otherwise, contending there’s much demand among the blind and those who can’t see well to have words read aloud using the devices. That some earlier versions of Amazon’s Kindle had such text-to-speech ACS functionality, but more-current models don’t, shows a “regression,” said McLarney. “We would like that regression to evolve again,” so users can have read aloud “all the text on the screen” and “anything that is displayed on the screen, and anything that is displayed on the browser,” she said.

"The desire amongst the blind and low-vision community is overwhelming” for text-to-speech functionality on e-readers, said McLarney. “I have never met a blind person who does not want access to electronic books.” The “great thing about technology is there’s a huge opportunity to expand the circle of participation” through use of advanced functions, she said. Those without money to buy more-expensive smartphones and tablets can check out an e-reader from a library, which might be the only obtainable device with accessible ACS functionality for them, said McLarney. E-readers on sale in the U.S. last year cost an average of about $100, versus $400 for tablets, said Jeff Orr, ABI Research senior practice director-mobile devices.

Thirty million Americans can’t read print because of disabilities, said the Association of Research Libraries in replies last month opposing the Coalition of E-Reader Manufacturers’s request (http://bit.ly/19FMTed). E-readers’ “unique characteristics make them a suitable substitute for paper books and journals,” with long battery life versus “mere hours” for a laptop or tablet, being “lighter than most paperbacks” and having “the capacity to run browsers and social media apps,” said the association of about 125 research libraries at major universities.

Those same features make e-readers ill-suited for ACS, said the manufacturers and their allies. Browsers are “stripped down and not fully featured,” refresh rates are “slow” and low power consumption facilitates long “reading sessions and use during extended travel,” said the Coalition of E-Reader Manufacturers’s petition. “Rendering ACS accessible on e-readers would require fundamentally altering the devices to be more like general-purpose tablets in cost, form factor, weight, user interface, and reduced battery life, and yet the necessary changes, if they were made, would not yield a meaningful benefit to individuals with disabilities."

"The device is primarily about reading, and I would say overwhelmingly” so, said Waldron. The browser is meant for limited use, to buy e-books and conduct basic searches on the likes of Wikipedia. “Using that device for ACS is beyond just being incidental” -- “it’s theoretical,” he said. “The idea that it happens on a routine basis” isn’t true, said Waldron. “A tiny percentage of people ever use the browser for anything,” so if even a “subset” of that audience uses ACS in a meaningful way, “we're talking about a very small percentage of the e-reader” audience, he continued.

Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project has heard anecdotal reports during focus groups and other research of e-reader users magnifying text on the devices, so the words are easier to read, but not using them like an audiobook, said Research Associate Kathryn Zickuhr. She said there’s no data on such trends. “It’s more limited, I think, in function and in expectations” among users than are tablets, she said of e-readers. “Most of what we hear people talking about is being able to resize the text and do things like that.” About 93 percent of e-reader users 16 and older surveyed by Pew reported reading an e-book on it as of December 2011, while 81 percent of tablet owners who read e-books used a tablet for that, Pew data show (http://bit.ly/GUvOQZ). There has been “pretty steady growth over time” in ownership of e-readers and tablets, which often overlaps, said Zickuhr. Thirty-four percent of U.S. adults reported as of May having a tablet, while 26 percent in January had an e-reader, Pew data show (http://bit.ly/19FmyqO).

U.S. e-reader use appears to be starting to wane, while tablet device shipments are continuing to increase, said Orr, citing data from his research firm. “We're definitely peaking, and the question is at what point will it start to recede,” he said of e-readers. The tablet market “continues to grow at a very good clip,” he said. ABI expects 11 million to 12 million e-readers to ship in the U.S. this year, down from 12 million to 13 million in 2012, and about 40 million have shipped in America since 2007, said Orr. Shipments this year of tablets are forecast to rise 31 percent to 76 million from last year, when about 103 million total had been shipped since ABI started keeping track, he said.

The case for a CVAA ACS waiver for e-readers is stronger than it was for gaming consoles, set-top boxes and smart TVs, all of which the FCC has granted exemptions for, said Waldron. With consoles, for instance, VoIP is part of marketing, but that’s not the case with e-readers, he said. “It is not a part of it. There is zero marketing geared toward advanced communications services for e-readers,” and the browser is there only for an online dictionary and to buy e-books, he said. “Our facts are as strong if not stronger than [for] the waivers the FCC has already granted.” -- Jonathan Make (jmake@warren-news.com)