Hearing impaired people can now access captioned telephone services for an additional two hours a day, Communications Minister Amy Adams announced today.

The CapTel NZ service enables people to listen to the other speaker and read word-for-word captions of the other person's speech at the same time. The service is now available from 7am to 10pm, seven days a week – previously it was available from 8am to 9pm. Outside these hours the phones still work, although the captions are not available.

'Up until now, people have had to wait until 8am each day for captions to be available. Similarly in the evening, people can find it disruptive if the captions are no longer available when they are in the middle of a call,” says Ms Adams.

'By extending the hours in the early morning and late evening, it provides hundreds of CapTel users with captions with more flexibility to make calls at their convenience. It will also allow room for more calls to be made as the number of people using the service grows.

Ms Adams said the service had proven popular with more than 400 people signing up since it launched last year, with this number expected to grow steadily over time. During December 2014, almost 9,900 calls were made using the service with approximately 34,500 minutes of talking time.

'CapTel helps people with impaired hearing to carry out everyday activities other people may take for granted, such as making a doctor's appointment or calling friends and family for a chat. This is another great service being funded through the Government's telecommunications development levy,” says Ms Adams.

How it works:

People can use a phone-based service with a specially designed CapTel phone or a web-based service where captions can be read directly from a computer screen. Captions are generated and transmitted almost simultaneously over the internet, with a small delay of around two seconds.

Funded through the telecommunications development levy, the service is free of charge for users, except for a one-off fee of $323 to hire a CapTel phone if they are using the phone-based service. WebCaptel users are not required to hire this phone but need their own computer and landline or mobile phone.

People can sign-up for the CapTel service by visiting the website: www.captel.co.nz