The pizzeria’s phone rings, but it doesn't make a sound.

Instead, on the shelf below, green lights flash. Waiters scurry by. A few paces away, a cook with a big wooden paddle shoves pizzas into a bulbous oven. The lights flash again, and Melody Stein picks up.

“Hi, this is Melody from Mozzeria,” she says. “OK, sure thing. What would you like to order?”

Melody is deaf. As are the waiters and the cooks. Yet any one of them can communicate with a hearing person over the phone.

Through a video relay service, deaf and hearing people can communicate seamlessly.

Call Mozzeria and the system will route you, the hearing person, to an interpreter at a "video relay service." The interpreter listens to what you say and signs it to Melody, who’s watching on the restaurant’s iPad. Then the interpreter speaks Melody’s response back to you. Back and forth, until you’ve placed your order or made your reservation. And if you don't find that to be absolutely marvelous, then, well, I don't know what to tell you.

And not just because you've ordered San Francisco's finest Neapolitan pizza. The impact of video relay services, or VRS, has been titanic for businesses owned and operated by the deaf. VRS has grown into a half-billion-dollar-a-year industry as more and more deaf Americans gain access to speedy mobile data and sophisticated phones. It's changed forever not only the way that Mozzeria and other deaf-run restaurants do business, but how the deaf navigate a world made for the hearing. In fact, VRS ranks among the biggest-ever leaps in deaf communication with the hearing. And it's all free, thanks to you.

Two Worlds Become One

Back in olden times, before smartphones or the internet, deaf-run businesses relied on fax machines to take orders. (Consider how much you loathe fax machines. Now imagine that being your way of life.) The deaf could also use a teletypewriter, or TTY, which transmitted text as a printout or on a screen—a good way for them to communicate with each other, but not exactly widely adopted among the hearing. TTYs did allow the deaf to type to relay services that acted as intermediarues between the deaf and hearing. These services were a big deal for deaf communication, but the process was slow and laborious.

Then along come smartphones and tablets, forever transforming the way the deaf communicate. Through a video relay service, the deaf and hearing can communicate seamlessly with only a slight delay between replies. “Now I have the ability to sign completely with an interpreter who’s able to speak what I’m saying and voice for me,” says Russ Stein, who co-owns Mozzeria with wife Melody. “It feels like I’m in the same room with another person.”

The system is so effective that it can fool customers into thinking they’re making a reservation with a hearing person. Until, that is, they actually show up, when they meet the host and get a response in sign language. "They say, 'How do you talk to us on the phone if you're deaf?'" Melody says.

And this isn’t just a business-hours service. The FCC mandates that video relay services make themselves available to the deaf community 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And they have to work efficiently: the services must answer at least 80 percent of calls within 120 seconds. That kind of reach doesn’t come cheap, so the FCC requires that telecoms pay into a fund to finance companies that provide VRS (check your phone bill and you might see a small charge).

As technology lags behind for the deaf, any smartphone right out of the box is a communication tool that gives them easy access not just to other deaf people—Convo has a FaceTime-like feature that allows users to sign to each other—but with the hearing. “With video relay service, I feel that I am on equal footing,” says Wayne Betts, Jr., founder of Convo, which provides VRS to Mozzeria.

Convo

Daunting Data and Design

But the smartphone is just one part of the equation. The data has to actually get to the device in the first place. And that’s a particular challenge given the sad state of connectivity in much of the US. And streaming video is a massive load. That isn’t as big of a deal for video services geared toward the hearing—Skype, for example—which don’t necessarily need you to see that talking head if the connection wavers. Video is expendable for the hearing. Audio is sacred.

"The difference when you're building video communications for the deaf is you actually optimize the communications for the video," says Grant Beckmann, vice president of engineering at Sorenson Communications, another VRS provider.

The services have become so popular, in fact, that providers are now staring at a staffing problem.

Slow the frame rate in a VRS sign language conversation down below 30 frames a second and things start getting unintelligible. So Sorenson and other VRS providers employ some serious compression and powerful data centers to deliver steady video, no matter where in the US the deaf caller happens to be.

Design poses another big challenge, particularly for Convo’s presence in deaf-run businesses. The alert system has to straddle the line between conspicuous for the staff and inconspicuous to customers. To that end, Convo enlists programmable Philips smart lightbulbs that initially flash green when a call comes in but go red if staff don't pick up. These lights are tucked under shelves around the Convo iPad. They're out of sight for the diners but glow brightly where staff can see them.

Being itself a deaf-owned and operated business, Convo sees its experience as uniquely deaf-centric. A hearing designer, after all, lacks the insights of a deaf one. “It starts with our human body, our eyes, how we see the world,” says Betts, Convo's founder.

convo

Power to the People

Providers of VRS have largely overcome these data and design challenges to connect a community that technology has often overlooked. The services have become so popular, in fact, that providers are now staring at a staffing problem. “The bottleneck is actually hiring interpreters,” says Beckmann. “It takes between six and eight years, maybe longer, to really develop the skills to be a video interpreter.”

So beyond design and reliability, VRS providers depend on their interpreters to set themselves apart from the competition. (Five VRS companies are vying in this highly competitive industry, which has grown in no small part thanks to the mandates of the FCC.) “Understand that one out of every 10 interpreters will actually make it into Convo,” says Jarrod Musano, CEO of Convo. “We're very strict, and we feel accountable.”

It’s hard to overstate the importance of expressiveness to sign language. From the subtlety of the gestures to facial expressions, sign language isn't just about literal translation. It's about inflection. Perfecting that kind of dual fluency takes a whole lot of practice. Consider, for instance, a deaf person's call to 911: The translator may have to express nonverbal panic to the dispatcher. Communication isn't just words.

And sure, sometimes it's just ordering a pizza. But such simple acts of communication have has helped Russ and Melody Stein’s little pizzeria get a footing in the crowded San Francisco restaurant scene. Two worlds coming together, one pie at a time.