Birnbaum Interpreting Services (BIS), a Deaf-owned corporation, was formed in 1995 and has quickly become one of the nation's largest and most respected interpreting services.BIS has been recognized by Forbes magazine as one of the top 500 small business successes in the country—and has repeatedly been recognized by Deloitte & Touche with its Technology Fast 500 award.
I was anxious to test the quality of their interpreting services. I decided to fingerspell everything! Of course at the end of the conversation, my hands were sore and I'm sure the interpreter's eyes were too! Nevertheless, she caught it all and did a great job.
They seems to not offer IP-Relay, VCO, or Captel.
But they do offer VRS, VRI, and if you create an account and get your own 10-digit number with them, you'll be able to receive their VRS mail as well (Same concept as SignMail and others). You'll be able to call 911, but they do not encourage it. "BISVRS recommends for you to dial 9-1-1 from a TTY or use a traditional TTY relay service to make 9-1-1 calls." Lastly, BISVRS can handle calls to or from the United States/U.S. Territories and to or from any international number.
Next VRS Provider: CacVRS
I was anxious to test the quality of their interpreting services. I decided to fingerspell everything! Of course at the end of the conversation, my hands were sore and I'm sure the interpreter's eyes were too! Nevertheless, she caught it all and did a great job.
They seems to not offer IP-Relay, VCO, or Captel.
But they do offer VRS, VRI, and if you create an account and get your own 10-digit number with them, you'll be able to receive their VRS mail as well (Same concept as SignMail and others). You'll be able to call 911, but they do not encourage it. "BISVRS recommends for you to dial 9-1-1 from a TTY or use a traditional TTY relay service to make 9-1-1 calls." Lastly, BISVRS can handle calls to or from the United States/U.S. Territories and to or from any international number.
The website offers two choices: I can call them with my VP @ BISVRS.tv (Hearing people can call at 1-866-928-3230). Or I can call them directly with my webcam. I decided to give it a shot. I clicked on their "Call Now Using Your Webcam" and interestingly enough the Viable Vision software appeared. It seems I have to log onto Viable Vision before I can call BISVRS... Isn't that a parody? Perhaps a conflict of interest? (My system was configured to automatically launch Viable Vision. I fixed it). Their technology is supported by the CSDVRS's platform.
My friend on the other end of the call, rated the interpreter as efficient and competent. My friend did not know that I had been fingerspelling to the interpreter during our conversation. He thought she was fluent and extremely skilled. She also identified herself at the beginning of the call as bring an interpreter.
Your browser had a link to callto://bisvrs.tv, and you obviously have Viable Vision installed to handle callto:// URLs. This is why Viable Vision started when you clicked on that link.
ReplyDeleteYou can also call 866-928-3230 from a deaf videophone and it will get you to a Birnbaum interpreter as well.
As Birnbaum uses the CSDVRS platform, rest assured that they do support both single line VCO (aka VCO+) and dual-line VCO, as well as 911 calls.
Birnbaum treats their interpreters like crap.
ReplyDeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteMy apologies. You're right about the callto://bisvrs.tv, 911, and CSDVRS platform. I completely overlooked the 911 feature on the website. Also if you go onto http://profile.bisvrs.com/ and look at the bottom, you can see a TINY logo, "Technology made possible by CSDVRS." Lastly, I have corrected the callto issue on my system. Thank you for pointing that out.
Regarding your comments; "Birnbaum uses the CSDVRS platform, rest assured that they do support both single line VCO (aka VCO+) and dual-line VCO," could you please provide a link or such? I could not find anything on their website or any other websites that indicates BISVRS does offer VCO services?
Nevertheless, I updated the post with the correct info.
Thank you again