Access to such service is a "civil rights issue," Andrew Imparato, president of the American Association of People with Disabilities, said during a Capitol Hill demonstration of real-time communication for the deaf.

The 1996 law, which some lawmakers are seeking to overhaul, currently "applies to old technology," he said, because it gives the disabled telecom access only via telephone and not broadband. "We need to make sure our policy brings us into the modern era," Imparato declared.

Other issues include the economic availability of equipment, Kelby Brick, director of law and advocacy for the National Association of the Deaf, said through a sign-language interpreter. With so many products on the market, some are bound to be incompatible -- making the devices useless if two deaf people who want to communicate have equipment with different standards, he added.

Brick called on Congress to require the FCC to recognize that video phone service is necessary and needs to be incorporated into updated telecom laws.

"Our goal is for it to work," Imparato said when asked if he supports mandated standards. That could mean industry-led standards reached through negotiation or action by Congress. "However it happens," it would be a good move, he said.

Brick, meanwhile, praised the FCC for requiring Internet phone providers to offer 911 service but urged the commission to also include video services. "We're talking about life-saving issues," he said.

Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Telecommunications and the Internet Subcommittee, said he would do "all that I can" to push legislation that makes new communication systems available to all. "It's imperative that the disabled have access to what other people have," he said.

Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., a member of the subcommittee, also pledged to be "very vocal" in support of making broadband technologies available to the deaf. "Telecommunications is the great equalizer," he said.

Engel called tax cuts during the Bush administration "one of the major impediments in technology spending." He said his office encounters a number of groups pushing "good technology," but because Congress is "not doing a very good job of being fiscally responsible," many promising projects fall by the wayside.

Frank Bowe, a professor at New York's Hofstra University, was on hand for the demonstration of broadband communication technology. After dialing his office number, Bowe's secretary and sign-language interpreter appeared on the screen. Bowe was able to get real-time messages from his secretary and later converse with a student in sign language.

"I've never once spoken to my secretary on the phone," he said.

By Chloe Albanesius