A lot of cable and television providers, some with more fanfare than others, have launched some form of accessibility for their talking guide software. While we were enjoying the holiday break, Verizon quietly enabled this feature for their Fios customers.

To enable the feature, go to Menu > Settings > System > Accessibility > Text to Speech > on/off, a process that is seemingly inaccessible for a blind user. Verizon does throw users a bone to solve this shortcoming however by allowing someone to have the text to speech feature enabled remotely by calling technical support.

Comcast started the trend of accessible set-top boxes over two years ago with many other companies following suit. Many of these advancements have been spurred by requirements in the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act which went into effect last December.

Have you tried Verizon's new service? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Displaying 2 comments.

I really hope we get a demo soon of all these services that have accessibility now. Also, they really need to add some kind of shortcut or other way to accessibly turn on and off the Text to Speech. Most of these providers have thought of this. My biggest issue with this is what if you share the TV with sighted family members? We have Comcast, and my family gets very annoyed if I forget to turn off Voice Guidance. I really hope Verizon fixes this.

Just got it from Verizon. They had to come out and replace both my set top boxes and router, free of charge of course. I wish I could change the speech speed . It is as slow as the default voice on JAWS. A true headache.

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J.J. Meddaugh is an experienced technology writer and computer enthusiast. He is a graduate of Western Michigan University with a major in telecommunications management and a minor in business. When not writing for Blind Bargains, he enjoys travel, playing the keyboard, and meeting new people.