Chad Metcalf uses an AOL pager to keep in touch with family and friends. (Michael Snyder photo) | ZOOM |

        It's late afternoon, class is almost over and 19-year-old Chad Metcalf's getting hungry. Discreetly paging his friend across campus, the Hamilton native quickly makes dinner plans at a favorite restaurant.

        While instant messaging (IM) is routine for many today, hand-held wireless pagers are quickly becoming the “cell phones” for the deaf and hard of hearing.

        “Mostly, I keep in touch with my mother” with the pager, says Mr. Metcalf, who attends Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. “She can get on her computer, send an IM to my pager, and it will vibrate so I can talk to her on my pager no matter where I am.”

        In the past, people with just a standard phone could communicate with the deaf and hard of hearing only through a text telephone, or TTY device. This longtime standard tool for the deaf allows text messages to be sent over phone lines.

An AOL text pager | ZOOM |

        Even with cell phones, the text bandwidth is so small that message lengths are limited.

        But one pager message can contain up to 16,000 characters, versus 150 maximum on a cell phone. Plus, a two-way pager has a mini-keyboard for composing words, compared with pressing the same keys repeatedly on the cell phone dial pad to create one word.

        This emerging technology enabled Mr. Metcalf to be interviewed for this story. By dialing 711, he connected with the Ohio Relay Service, which zipped a typed message to a specially trained operator, who then called the Enquirer and read the communication.

SERVICE PROVIDERS

Several online companies are helping to bridge the gap between the hearing and hearing-impaired communities.     • The Emergency Email Network (www.emergencyemailnetwork.com) is a free service providing weather and natural disaster information in all 50 states, through both e-mail and pager. Consumers register by county, so that they can receive the appropriate warnings.     • Wynd Communications (www.wynd.com), the country's leading wireless communications service provider for people with hearing loss, has entered into several partnerships with advocacy groups for the deaf to make pagers available and affordable to the hearing-impaired.     The company started selling pagers with special features for the deaf four years ago, and “it took off like wildfire,” says Doug Timewell, Wynd's vice president for sales and marketing.     Wynd introduced a way to link pagers to TTY machines, making communication more mobile and accessible to those with TTYs. Through GoWeb, customers can surf the Web from a pager and even read the New York Times.

        An operator relays a hearing person's spoken words by typing them back to the user of a two-way pager. Despite slight delays for transmission, the conversation maintains its spontaneity and both sides are “heard.”

        “If I need to talk to a person who does not know sign language, then I can type a message on the pager and show it to him/her to communicate,” Mr. Metcalf says. “I did one time. When I went to the restaurant with my deaf friends and I needed to communicate to the waitress to order the food, I used the pager to type the message to the waitress. Then the waitress can respond back by typing the message on the pager.”

        The emotional rewards of such technologies are great, and will be even more so as baby boomers age, says Dr. Lucille Beck, director of audiology and speech pathology for the Department of Veterans Affairs in Washington.

        Deafness or serious hearing loss affects almost 3 million Americans. Many boomers already experiencing significant hearing loss will need better technologies in the future, she says.

        Because most people older than 65 start experiencing some hearing loss, younger folks whose ears already have been damaged are at increased risk of deafness. That includes boomers such as former President Clinton, who listened to too much booming rock 'n' roll music and has been wearing hearing aids since 1997.

        “Noise as a public health hazard is a contributing factor for everyone, on top of the aging factor,” Dr. Beck says.

        Pagers like the one Mr. Metcalf uses cost $180 or more, but increasing market competition will bring the price closer to the price of a cell phone. The service cost of $15-$80 a month makes it as affordable as a regular Internet service provider. Features range from basic two-way text messaging to direct connect with AAA roadside emergency service to full Internet access.

        Mr. Metcalf is among millions of other wireless users who are subscribers of America Online (AOL) Instant Messaging and free notification news services, such as CNN and Yahoo!

        “I'm on CNN Breaking News,” he says. “They page me on my pager for any breaking news. It helps me to be aware of important news as fast as possible.”

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