Overland Park, Kan — The state of Wyoming has selected Sprint to provide telecommunications relay services (TRS) for 2 years, beginning August 1, 2011.

Sprint appears to be aggressively courting the hearing loss market with its various packages of relay services. Recently, it launched a bundle of Android applications that includes video relay services for cell phones, as well as other applications.

With the addition of Wyoming, Sprint now provides relay service to 32 states and the federal government, as well as to New Zealand and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. The company also provides Captioned Telephone (CapTel) services to 31 states and the federal government.

Sprint Relay in Wyoming will allow hearing callers and users of text-telephone (TTY), CapTel, and Speech to Speech (STS) to communicate with one another through trained relay service operators.

Sprint will collaborate with the state’s staff to provide outreach services to all potential users. One specific outreach goal is to continue to increase awareness of relay services among hearing users and businesses.

Because of misconceptions that relay services are telephone marketing services, businesses often hang up on relay callers. To defuse this misconception, Sprint has developed an awareness campaign called "Please, Don’t Hang Up," to educate key businesses, such as banks, hospitals, medical clinics, government agencies, and service industries, on relay services.

In addition, Sprint Relay will employ a comprehensive outreach program to make Wyoming residents aware of new telecommunications relay features under development, such as video relay services, Internet relay, and wireless relay.

For more information on Wyoming’s relay service, potential users can call (888) 694-4450.

SOURCE: Sprint