Title: Clarifying Telus VRS trial lottery
Hello BC Deaf Community,
There are some confusion about the lottery for participation in the Telus VRS trial. I wrote to Telus to request clarification.
Lottery Process
Some of you have heard that community members were already chosen earlier this week to have the VP200 installed in their homes. Telus has chosen a few people in the Greater Vancouver area, Edmonton and Calgary to do preliminary testing of the Sorenson VP on Telus internet accounts for verification.
The official lottery will be on June 21st and will include those who have submitted their applications to Telus on Tuesday night and including all applications submitted to WIDHH for delivery to Telus. Whether you have a Telus account or subscribe to another internet provider you will all be eligible to have your names drawn for participation in the trial. If you have a different internet provider than Telus you will have to consider switching to Telus to participate in the trial.
US Installers
Some were concerned that US installers will be doing all of the installation for the trial. Telus has informed us that the US installers are here to provide training for Canadian installers. Canadian installers will be doing the installation for BC participants in the trial with the exception of recent installations which are for training the Canadian installers.
Expansion of the trial participant numbers
Telus has informed us that the trial lottery on June 21st will not be the final and only lottery. They will be monitoring the volume of usage and as funding permits add more participants to the trial.
If you wish to participate in the trial you are encouraged to fill out the application and submit it to WIDHH by June 17th at 4:00 p.m. Participation in the trial is voluntary and your decision. The only cost is the internet account with Telus as we have been informed.
Thank you,
Monte Hardy
BC-VRS Committee
