It’s been over 15 years since Texas Relay Service launched for deaf community in Texas at that time. Many things have add & change over years such as internet relay service, voice call over, video relay service, wireless relay service, etc. It is nice to have several options to use relay service depending wherever I am at home, work, on road, vacation, etc.
I remember many years ago before statewide relay service launched, Deaf Action Center of Dallas offers free relay service locally. Of course, it’s only beginning but their service is very limited. We cannot make multiple calls, they open only Monday – Friday during business hours and often busy signals waiting for others to finished their phone calls.
I must admit that I don’t use relay service daily – maybe 2-3 hours minimum every week which included relay service online or video relay service. I use email and instant messaging heavily. I even use it to communicate with my wife and two daughters frequently. It is simply very convenience.
It is always “abuse” somewhere out there basically on everything we used like car, home, service, restaurant, virtually almost on anything. I know that relay service scams control will get better over times. Give it a time.
It is possible that they will implement where we require to login and password to make relay service in near future. Why? It would help control scams, abusing, easier to track and block it permanently. Maybe it will never happen – we will see.
No matter what, relay service will always be one of the most important in deaf & hard of hearing community. Remember not to use 9-1-1 emergency calls via relay service. Always call 9-1-1 directly — they have TTY support in their system.
Right now, Sprint, MCI, Hamilton and AT&T offers traditional relay service. Of course they also offer IP-based relay service which is very popular choice today.
Anyway, I think relay service forum is excellent tools where people can work together to improve quality of relay service in long run. Check it out!
It’s not clear how widespread the problem is. Both MCI and AT&T concede con artists have used their systems, but say their impact is limited. MCI spokeswoman Natasha Haubold said scams impact about 1 percent of their system’s calls — down from 2 percent last year, when the company began implementing tighter security controls. AT&T refused to discuss the prevalence of the calls. –MSNBC News Online
Unofficial Relay Service Forum
http://ip_relay_scams.aimoo.com/
Abusing IP Relay article at BroadbandReports.com
http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/54275?cat=141383
MSNBC Article
http://msnbc.msn.com/ID/4781806/
Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite 
Our house finally gets makeover (not exactly) with fully painted in hunter green and squirrel brown. Images it’s been almost 10 years since we purchased this house. Looks better now – whew! 
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