ARCEP publishes its latest newsletter in a format accessible to the visually impaired.

Paris, 22 October 2009

The latest issue of the ARCEP newsletter, La Lettre de l'Autorité, which was published in mid October 2009, examines the solidarity initiatives which, in the electronic communications and postal sectors, are aimed at achieving social cohesion and balanced regional development.

This issue also contains several pages and testimonials on the initiatives that have been taken, in France and around Europe, to help increase access to information and communications technologies for people with a disability.

• A PDF version accessible to the blind and the visually impaired

The Authority is also continuing its efforts to improve accessibility by publishing a PDF version of this issue devoted to the topic of solidarity on its website, in a format that is accessible to the blind and the visually impaired.

Without touching the visual aspects of the newsletter, the work consisted of integrating XML elements in the PDF file attributes on each page, so that a voice synthesizer could render the content vocally. The process of making the 36 pages of this issue of La Lettre de l'Autorité accessible were verified by a visually impaired person, and represented one week of work.

ARCEP will publish all of its newsletters in this format from here on in.

• The "News" section of the ARCEP website is accessible to the visually impaired via audio files

This initiative comes to complete earlier efforts devoted to people who are visually impaired who have had access to MP3 audio versions of all ARCEP press releases since December 2008, and to some of the talks by and interviews with members of the Executive Board.

This special access is available on the ARCEP website's homepage: to access it, users only need to click on the red icon on the right-hand side entitled: "L'ARCEP en audio".