Federal Communications Commission	FCC 21-28


STATEMENT OF
ACTING CHAIRWOMAN JESSICA ROSENWORCEL

Re:	Amendment of the Commission’s Rules Governing Standards for Hearing Aid-Compatible Handsets, WT Docket No. 20-3 

Accessibility means the equal opportunity to create, participate, and communicate—and promoting accessible technology is a duty this agency has under the law.  

With this decision, we improve accessibility by updating our wireless hearing aid compatibility rules to ensure that people with hearing loss have access to the newest devices built with the latest technical developments and standards.  This represents another step forward toward our goal of making 100 percent of wireless handsets hearing-aid compatible.  

This action is especially important right now with the deployment of 5G underway.  It is imperative that this new service is built for all.  But at present the technical standards for hearing aid compatibility do not cover frequencies above 6 GHz, which are airwaves that we expect to play a key role in our 5G future.  So, in this decision, we encourage the ANSI C63 Committee to work with stakeholders to develop a new standard that addresses hearing aid compatibility in frequencies above 6 GHz in order to ensure that the next generation of wireless technology does not leave anyone behind.  
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