Telecommunications relay service
operator service that allows people who are deaf, hard of hearing, deafblind, or have a speech disorder to place calls to standard telephone users via a keyboard or assistive device
A telecommunications relay service (TRS; also a relay service, IP-relay, or web-based relay service) is an operator service that allows people who are deaf, hard of hearing, deafblind, or have a speech disorder to place calls to standard telephone users via a keyboard or assistive device. Originally, relay services were designed to be connected through a TDD, teletypewriter (TTY) or other assistive telephone device. Services gradually have expanded to include almost any real-time text capable technology such as a personal computer, laptop, mobile phone, PDA, and many other devices. The first TTY was invented by deaf scientist Robert Weitbrecht in 1964. The first relay service was established in 1974 by Converse Communications of Connecticut.
Types of services available
Depending on the technical and physical abilities and physical environments of users, different call types are possible via relay services.
TTY to voice/voice to TTY
Once the most common type of TRS call, TTY calls involve a call from a deaf or hard-of-hearing person who utilizes a TTY to a hearing person. In this type of call, typed messages are relayed as voice messages by a TRS operator, (also known as Communication Assistant (CA), Relay Operator (RO), Relay Assistant (RA), or relay agent (agent)), and vice versa. This allows callers who are unable to use a regular telephone to be able to place calls to people who use a regular telephone and vice versa. When the person who is hearing is ready for a response, it is customary to say "go ahead" or "GA" to indicate that it is the TTY (teletypewriter) user's turn to talk and "stop keying", "SK", or "ready to hang up" when ending the call and vice versa.
The public source identifies “Telecommunications relay service” as operator service that allows people who are deaf, hard of hearing, deafblind, or have a speech disorder to place calls to standard telephone users via a keyboard or assistive device. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Telecommunications, relay and service.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2142580. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1964 and 1974.
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This entry incorporates text from “Telecommunications relay service” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.