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National Relay Service

The National Relay Service (NRS) gives telephone access to deaf or speech-impaired Australians through a teletypewriter (TTY) or a computer with a modem, and allows anyone in the community to respond.

Specially trained Relay Officers (RO) professionally relay conversations between two parties. Conversations can be relayed in a variety of ways: from text to voice, voice to text, or even use your own voice to converse and read back the return conversation on the screen (this is called VCO or Voice Carry Over). Of course strict confidentiality of all calls is guaranteed.

The NRS also has an emergency service for you to access Police, Fire or Ambulance services by dialling 106 through a TTY or a computer with modem.

This service is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It’s also confidential and is provided at no additional cost to consumers.

For more information contact the NRS, via the Australian Communication Exchange website

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This page was last updated on: 02 May 2011