Many assistive devices for the hard-of-hearing and the visually impaired rely on the signalling tones and codes developed for use in the land-line telephone industry.
The continuing migration to wireless and Internet-based telephone technologies has allowed many carriers (e.g. Verizon, AT&T, Sprint), to opt-out of certain regulations regarding these tones. For example, each of these carriers allow a subscriber to change the call-setup or "Ringback" tone to a recording of their choice in exchange for a nominal fee. This allows subscribers to change the call-setup tone to another tone such as the "Line Busy" tone.
We hereby petition the administration to direct the FCC and FTC to require all telephone carriers in their jurisdiction to adhere to ITU-T Standard E.300-3 as amended.